Frank was born on August 19, 1945 in El Centro, California, to Frank and Alice Hovore. He grew up in Burbank, California, and received his bachelor's degree from California State University, Northridge in 1970. He later attended the University of California at Los Angeles, where he pursued a Ph.D. in biology under Henry Hespenheide. During college, he worked as a curatorial assistant at the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History in the Department of Entomology. After graduation, he took a job with the Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation at the Placerita Canyon Nature Center and Natural Area as a park naturalist. He later became the director of the Placerita Canyon Nature Center, and in 1986 was appointed to head all the nature centers, natural areas, and wildlife sanctuaries in Los Angeles County, a post he held until his retirement in 1994. Following his retirement, Frank turned his part-time environmental consulting business into a full-time venture, Frank Hovore & Associates, which provided biological analyses for development projects throughout southern California and the western United States. Frank's interest in entomology and Coleoptera began at an early age; he collected insects a young boy, and while in college, he was inspired by his entomology professor, the late Peter Bellinger, to study Coleoptera and specifically, Cerambycidae. Frank's assignment in Dr. Bellinger's entomology class was to key out all the biology department's cerambycid holdings using the recently-published monograph by E. G. Linsley and J. A. Chemsak. From that class project on, Frank's lifelong passion began. His first field collecting trips focused on Cerambycidae and Pleocomidae in southern California. Not long after starting out, Frank and his good friend and field companion Ed Giesbert, were describing new species of cerambycids from California. Frank also collected and later collaborated with Dick Penrose and Dave Carlson on numerous field collecting expeditions and research projects throughout the U.S. and Latin America. Many of these trips are destined to become hallowed tales in the world of entomology; grand adventures of extreme peril in the tropical jungles of the New World. Among the most notable include nearly driving off a 3,000 foot cliff on a muddy road in the mountains of southern Mexico, only to have the undercarriage of the car hung up on a well-placed shrub. Frank was also bitten by a venomous eyelash viper in Costa Rica, and refused medical treatment, fearing it might “interfere” with the productivity of the collecting expedition. Later, his most famous harrowing tale involved his near-electrocution with a 60,000 volt powerline in Costa Rica, for which he spent several days in the hospital and suffered third degree burns throughout his body. Frank's infamous research trips were truly the stuff legends are made of. Frank's early studies in the Coleoptera evolved into over 40 papers throughout his scientific career, most of which dealt with cerambycids, many with Pleocoma, and some with tenebrionids. The majority of his cerambycid publications were focused on his collaborations with institutions such as INBio in Costa Rica, and UNAM in Mexico. He had accumulated over six years of field research experience in Latin America since he began studies in 1984. Frank's knowledge of Neotropical Cerambycidae, field collecting ability, and enthusiasm for Coleoptera are perhaps unsurpassed by any field researcher before his time or since. His collection will be deposited in the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, and much of his library will be donated to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Frank is survived by his wife Kathie, and his two children, Tom and Holly. Frank had established a fellowship in honor of his late mother in 2005 with the Organization for Tropical Studies (OTS) in Costa Rica for Latin American students interested in entomological field research. The Coleopterists Bulletin Volume 61, Issue 2 (June 2007): pp. 147–148 |
