Talmage Hiebert

A memorial service for former Hillsboro resident Talmage Gordon Hiebert, 94, who died May 3 in Traverse City, Michigan, will be Saturday in Traverse City.

Born May 13, 1924, in Burrton, to the Rev. Peter Nicholas Hiebert and Helen (Kunkel) Hiebert, he married Laura Evalina Franz of Hillsboro on June 19, 1948.

After he obtained a bachelor’s degree from the University of Kansas and a master’s degree from George Washington University, he and his wife ran the Hillsboro Journal, a predecessor of the Star-Journal, in 1954 and ’55. He then returned to George Washington to complete Ph.D. and M.D. degrees.

After interning at the University of Chicago Medical Center, he received additional training in disability and rehabilitation medicine at Hines Veterans Administration Hospital at Loyola University in Chicago.

He held teaching and research positions at George Washington, the University of Chicago, the University of Illinois, Northwestern University, and the University of Michigan.

In 1974, he was appointed chief medical officer of the Social Security Disability Insurance Program for Region 5 and subsequently devoted his academic career to training physicians in improving standards for disability evaluation and rehabilitation.

He is credited with having assisted the development of medical ergonomics and in 1979 founded the American Disability Evaluation Research Institute.

After his retirement in 1990, he continued to work as an international consultant and was heavily involved in a UNICEF program to eliminate iodine deficiency disorders. He also was a trustee of People to People International.

An advocate of mind-body-spirit healing, he published several books, including “Survival — How to Fix the Coming Health Care Crisis” and “Death of the Doctor — Medical Practice in the Year 2000.”

Survivors include his wife and their three sons, Franz Kunkel Hiebert of Austin, Texas; Fredrik Talmage Hiebert of Philadelphia; and Rudi Nicholas Hiebert, of New York, along with five grandsons.

His brother, Ray E. Hiebert of Carmel, California, and his sister, Carol Hiebert Wiebe of Trinidad, California, also survive.

Brothers Lester and Lowell Hiebert and sisters Evelyn Austin and Jesse Penner preceded him in death.