Dr. Philip R. Carter

K-State VMAA honors 1926 Graduate, Dr. Philip Carter, for service and to commemorate the CVM centennial year 2004 to 2005.

Dr. Philip Carter

Dr. Philip R. Carter (KSU '26) received a 2003 K-State, College of Veterinary Medicine, Veterinary Medical Alumni Association Recognition Award. The award will honor Dr. Carter as he turns 100 years old during the Centennial Celebrations for the College of Veterinary Medicine in 2004-2005 and for his being a role model for future alumni in a professional and community setting. The award was presented at the Annual Convention of the American Veterinary Medical Association on July 20, 2003 in Denver, Colorado, at the alumni reception held at the Adam's Mark Hotel.

Philip Carter was born in Scranton, Kansas on April 2, 1904, grew up in Wabaunsee County, attended high school in Harveyville and graduated in 1922. His parents John Elam Carter and Emily Samantha Carter had 10 children and raised them on a sharecropper’s farm where money was scarce. Philip managed to secure a loan to attend the then named, Kansas State College, the year after graduating from high school.

Dr. Philip Carter completed his doctorate in veterinary medicine at Kansas State College, Division of Veterinary Medicine in 1926. Having taken ROTC, he was awarded a second lieutenant commission in the United States Army Reserve upon graduation. During this busy time in 1926, Philip met Garnet "Betty" Kastner from Manhattan, Kansas. They dated, were engaged and were married the next year in Manhattan at Christmas time. Dr. Carter had already started a new job with the Minnesota Department of Public Health and arrived in Manhattan from Minnesota by train before their wedding. They took the same train north to start their new married life.

In Minnesota, Dr. Carter worked in the relatively new field of public health, dealing with zoonotic diseases, those animal diseases transmissible to man, and networked with other state, national and international organizations. In 1939, the United States Public Health Service started offering public health scholarships to veterinarians. He took a leave of absence to study for a year at Harvard's School of Public Health where he earned his master's degree.

In 1939, with war impending, Dr. Carter was called to active duty after his Harvard graduation and was sent to Newfoundland Base Command where he served as base veterinarian. He was then reassigned stateside to the Civil Affairs/Military Government service (CA/MG). With CA training complete, he shipped out for London to await the invasion of Europe. After D-day, he was attached to the 9th Army, where one of his jobs was to help stop a foot-and-mouth disease epidemic that was spreading throughout the continent. An interesting part of this task entailed the search of liberated areas for samples of a very effective foot-and-mouth vaccine developed and used by the Germans.

At war's end, Dr. Carter was asked to stay on to work with the Quadripartite Constabulary force in Berlin. He took a regular U.S. Army officer's exam, passed it, and was given a regular army major's commission. This ended his long civilian career as a public health veterinarian. He resigned his position with the Minnesota Department of Public Health to stay in the regular army.

Dr. Carter stayed in Germany until November of 1947 when he returned to the Untied States. The balance of his army career was stateside and included impressive assignments: Assistant Depot Veterinarian at the Chicago Quartermaster Depot; Post Veterinarian at Fort Jackson, South Carolina; Secretary of Defense, Research and Development Board, Committee on Biological Warfare; Commandant of the Army Medical Service Meat and Dairy Hygiene School; Veterinary Section of the Office of the Army Surgeon General; and Post Veterinarian, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Dr. Carter retired from the United States Army as a Colonel in 1959, to Boulder, Colorado. During their marriage Philip and Betty raised a son, Dr. Alan Carter, a child psychiatrist, who now lives in North Carolina. Philip lost Betty to cancer in 1994 after 68 years of marriage. He lives today in a retirement home in Boulder where he receives all the care he needs and stays very active, even for a young 99.

"I've reached my great age by living right, traveling, exercising and being active," asserted Dr. Carter. "And maybe it is also due to inherited genes and some just plain old luck!"