In Memoriam: Farrel Wayne Lytle (1934–2026)

Far­rel Wayne Lytle passed away March 25, 2026, at the Grover C. Dils Med­ical Cen­ter in Caliente, Neva­da at the age of 91. He was born on Novem­ber 10, 1934 in Cedar City, Utah to Free­land Wayne and Jus­tine Jones Lytle. Far­rel grew up in Rose Val­ley, Neva­da and grad­u­at­ed from Lin­coln Coun­ty High School in 1952. He grad­u­at­ed from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Neva­da, Reno in 1958 with an MS in Chem­istry. Far­rel mar­ried his high school sweet­heart, Manet­ta Bleak in the St George Utah Tem­ple on Sep­tem­ber 8, 1954. They had four sons: Nel­son Wayne, William Reed, Charles Melling, and Drew Bleak.

After his ser­vice in the army at Fort Sill, Okla­homa, Far­rel and his fam­i­ly moved to Seat­tle Wash­ing­ton where he pur­sued a career in physics and chem­istry at The Boe­ing Company.

Dur­ing this career, he dis­cov­ered and cre­at­ed the the­o­ry behind a unique branch of physics: Extend­ed X‑ray Absorp­tion Fine Struc­ture Spec­troscopy (EXAFS). He per­formed the first exper­i­ments demon­strat­ing the util­i­ty of this approach in elu­ci­dat­ing the struc­ture of chem­i­cal com­pounds. As the leader in this field, he pub­lished over 200 peer reviewed sci­en­tif­ic papers demon­strat­ing appli­ca­tions in catal­y­sis, biol­o­gy, and chem­istry. Many of these papers demon­strat­ed the util­i­ty of EXAFS in cat­a­lyst char­ac­ter­i­za­tion, and as such laid the foun­da­tion for the appli­ca­tion of EXAFS as a foun­da­tion­al method­ol­o­gy for under­stand­ing the atom­ic lev­el struc­ture of catalysts.

He cre­at­ed his own com­pa­ny, EXAFS, Inc., pro­vid­ing research tools to sci­en­tists con­duct­ing exper­i­ments in X‑ray sci­ence and remained active as a sci­en­tist over his career of 60 years. Today, the sci­ence that Far­rel inspired is con­duct­ed in over 50 advanced research facil­i­ties locat­ed in Europe, North Amer­i­ca, East Asia, South Amer­i­ca, and the Mid­dle East.

Upon his retire­ment from Boe­ing, Far­rel felt the pull of the Neva­da hills and the smell of sage­brush. He and Manet­ta moved “back home” to build a house in Eagle Val­ley. There he and Manet­ta could be close to their fam­i­lies and enjoy their asso­ci­a­tion. And since he was close to so many won­der­ful ancient and his­toric set­tle­ments and civ­i­liza­tions, he pur­sued his hob­by — archaeology.

Far­rel was always a builder. He loved nature and shar­ing it with fam­i­ly and friends. He built sum­mer homes at Coop­er Lake in Wash­ing­ton state and Stock­ham Island near Tofi­no, British Colum­bia, Cana­da. He loved out­door sports: salmon fish­ing, deer hunt­ing, hik­ing, boat­ing … any­thing to be out­doors. He loved to be out in the hills look­ing for a new Anasazi site or read­ing petroglyphs.

Far­rel was a gar­den­er. His gar­den in Eagle Val­ley was leg­endary. In lat­er years he invit­ed fam­i­ly and friends to plant their gar­dens in space he pre­pared so all could grow their own vegetables.

Far­rel was pre­ced­ed in death by his wife Manet­ta, par­ents Free­land Wayne and Jus­tine Lytle, his broth­ers Eldon G Lytle (Rula), and Noel J Lytle (Ani­ta).