Andrew Oerke traveled the globe as a pioneer in the Peace Corps, a founder of microloan nonprofits, a restorer of endangered ocean waters, and as a poet.
The son and grandson of Lutheran ministers who established churches across Minnesota and Wisconsin, Oerke eschewed the family business but maintained a pastoral sense of empathy, particularly through his writing.
Oerke, whose poetry appeared in publications such as the New Yorker, died recently of a heart ailment exacerbated by a long struggle with the effects of malaria contracted years earlier in Africa. He was 80.
U.S. Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize-winner William Meredith once wrote of him: "Andrew Oerke's work is a window on the world, a world seen through the compassionate eyes of a fellow pilgrim."
In 2005, Oerke was given the United Nations Award for Literature by the U.N. Society for Writers and Artists for his books "African Stiltdancer" and "San Miguel de Allende."
Born in La Crosse, Wis., Oerke graduated from high school in Emmons, Minn., began his college studies at St. Olaf in Northfield in 1948, and won a Fulbright scholarship to Freie Universitat of Berlin, and scholarships to University of Salamanca, Spain, the University of Mexico and Baylor University in Texas. Oerke taught English literature at Bemidji State University after working on his Ph.D. at Iowa State University.
At a campaign stop in Milwaukee during John F. Kennedy's 1960 presidential bid, Oerke is credited with suggesting to then-U.S. Sen. William Proxmire that a global volunteer organization should be developed that would allow young people to share American values overseas. Six weeks later, Kennedy announced the idea of the Peace Corps during a speech at the University of Michigan. Oerke would eventually become director for operations in Malawi and later Jamaica.
In 1973, long before the concept became popular, he became involved in a struggling microloan endeavor called Partners For Productivity, which gave small loans to village women in Africa. By 1987 he and his colleagues had expanded the effort to more than 60 nations in four continents.
