Dr. E. Grey Dimond, founder of the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) School of Medicine passed away November 3, 2013. His life was devoted to the practice of medicine, to medical education and, for the latter half of his life, to promoting friendship between his country and China.

He was a very early president, 1961-1962, of the American College of Cardiology and, at his death, the oldest surviving president.

During his military service in Japan, Dimond was sent to Shanghai to examine Americans who had been imprisoned there by the Japanese. From that experience, he made himself knowledgeable about China. In 1971, his friend, journalist Edgar Snow, arranged for Dimond and his teacher, Paul Dudley White, to visit China. The two men were the first American physicians in China in twenty-two years. Dimond made the re-establishment of friendly relations between the two countries a prime duty. In his life, he made forty trips to Asia, hosted numerous American groups on visits to China, brought many students from China to UMKC, and, capping all this, he and his wife adopted a Chinese daughter in 1980.

The prominent international correspondent for the New York Times, Harrison Salisbury, wrote in 1988, 'Grey Dimond's energy, imagination and dedication to public and professional welfare are unique in my experience. No one whom I know has done as much single-handed for the betterment of Chinese-American relations and that is only one of his many preoccupations.'

Dr. Dimond's father was from a prominent Mississippi family. The couple was visiting and Christmas shopping in St. Louis, his mother's home city, when she went into labor. Grey was born on his mother's birthday, December 8, 1918, and the family returned to Terre Haute, Indiana five days after his birth. During testimony in Jefferson City, Missouri, attempting to get funding for the new medical school, one of the legislators challenged Dimond as to why a Mississippi native was asking for Missouri money. The reply: "I was born in St. Louis and my mother's family came to Missouri in 1815, before it became a State. When did your family come?" The legislator choked, then recovered with a laugh, and said, 'You win! My father came here from Italy!' Dimond did not volunteer that he had lived in St. Louis only the first five days of his life.

As a youth, Dimond enjoyed sports, lettered in high school in football and track …

密苏里大学堪城分校（UMKC）埃德加‧斯诺基金会（Edgar Snow，简称ESMF）日前在堪萨斯市具歷史性的旧火车站举行年会，应邀担任主讲人的密州堪城市立图书馆馆长肯珀（Crosby Kemper III）在会上和大家分享他在中国教学一年的见闻。年会约有300多人参加。

当晚，首先由ESMF名誉主席密州堪萨斯市市长夫人柯利夫顿-詹姆斯（Licia Clifton-James）及UMKC校长夫人莫顿（Yvette Morton）致欢迎词。 主持晚会的ESMF执行长南茜‧希尔（Nancy Hill）介绍斯诺纪念基金会的宗旨，为通过中美人民之间的文化、经济和教育合作，致力培养双方更深刻和持久的友谊关系。斯诺被认为是第一个参访中共领导人毛泽东的西方记者，著有「西行漫记」，纪录从中共创建至1930年期间的中国共产主义运动。 她也指出，斯诺研讨会每隔一年分别轮流在北京和堪城召开，明年在堪城召开的第16届斯诺研讨会，主题为「斯诺的堪萨斯城：艺术和创业相交的地方」。

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