Cutting the Word "Impossible" Out of the Dictionary: Honoring Bill Danforth at 100
Today, April 10, marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Dr. William H. Danforth — Bill, as he always insisted — the founding chairman of the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center and one of St. Louis's most consequential civic leaders.
Bill Danforth helping teams prepare donation packages at World Food Day, a Center tradition in the early years.
When Bill was a boy, his grandfather—the industrialist who, in 1894, started the company that would become food and feed industry leader Ralston Purina—asked young Bill to fetch his dictionary and a pair of scissors. Then he told him to look up the word "impossible" and cut it out. "That was part of my early training," Bill once recalled. "I've never forgotten that. You have to try and do the best you can and hope for the best."
Bill took the lesson to heart. Born into fortune in 1926, he could have chosen any path. He chose to help. He became a Navy physician during the Korean War, a cardiologist, and, for 24 years, the chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis, presiding over its transformation into one of the nation's leading research institutions.
After retiring from Wash U in 1995, in 1998 Bill founded the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, named for his father, with a vision that was both audacious and deeply personal: to feed the hungry, protect the environment, and make St. Louis a global leader in plant science. He built on the region's existing strengths in the biosciences; assembled funding from government, industry, and philanthropy; and rallied a community of scientists around a shared mission.
Bill Danforth with, from left, Danforth Center President Roger Beachy, Bill’s brother Senator Jack Danforth, and Missouri Botanical Garden President Peter Raven at the groundbreaking for the Danforth Center building.
Ask Bill to explain any of it and he would give you one word: luck. Lucky to live as long as he had. Lucky to work alongside great colleagues. He was incapable of taking credit. When he passed away in 2020 at the age of 94, it’s safe to say that we at the Danforth Center were lucky to have had Bill Danforth for our founder.
President Giles Oldroyd is carrying Bill’s founding vision forward — with the same conviction Bill held from the start: that plant science can feed the world, protect the planet, and spark new industries.
Bill Danforth with Interim President Phil Needleman and Cardinal’s mascot Fredbird.
From all of us, Happy 100th, Bill. We're still cutting the word "impossible" out of the dictionary.