Tap Pryor

Pryor was born in New York City on June 26, 1931,{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=V3wiAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Pryor,+Taylor%22+1931|title=Outstanding Civic Leaders of America|date=December 14, 1968|publisher=Outstanding American Foundation|via=Google Books}} the son of Samuel F. Pryor and Mary Taylor Allderdice.{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rVG6S616J-0C&q=Taylor+Allderdice+Pryor|title=Vogue|date=December 14, 1926|publisher=Condé Nast Publications|via=Google Books}}{{cite news|title=The Man Who Put Windows In Davy Jones's Locker|url=http://newspapers.com/article/honolulu-star-bulletin/136808646/|last=Wall|first=A.E.P.|newspaper=Honolulu Star-Bulletin|date=April 26, 1964}} {{free access}} His father was an aviator, and personal friend of Charles Lindbergh, who later served as vice president of Pan American World Airways, and his godfather was Al Williams, a pioneering aviator in the 1930s.{{cite news|title=the 'Tap' Pryor story: from dreams to debts|url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/honolulu-star-bulletin/129064627/|newspaper=Honolulu Star-Bulletin|date=June 25, 1972|last=Benson|first=Bruce|page=A6}} {{free access}} He has two sisters and two brothers. Receiving the nickname "Tap" in his childhood, Pryor was from a wealthy family and grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut.{{cite news|title=the 'Tap' Pryor story: from dreams to debts|url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/honolulu-star-bulletin/129064605/|newspaper=Honolulu Star-Bulletin|date=June 25, 1972|last=Benson|first=Bruce|page=A1}} {{free access}} He graduated from Cornell University in 1953 with a degree in creative writing and arts. Learning to fly at age fourteen, he also enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in the early 1950s, served at Parris Island, Pensacola, Florida, and Marine Corps Base Quantico as a helicopter pilot.{{cite news|title=Tap Pryor: Makapuu farmer|url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-honolulu-advertiser/136809640/|last=Elegant|first=Robert S.|date=December 21, 1970|newspaper=The Honolulu Advertiser|page=A26}} {{free access}}{{cite news|title=A Pryor commitment to oysters|url=http://newspapers.com/article/the-honolulu-advertiser/136808798/|date=September 6, 1978|last=Hastings|first=Barbara|page=A1|newspaper=The Honolulu Advertiser}} {{free access}} In 1949 or 1951,{{cite news|last=Nelson|first=Lyle|title=State's Young Men of Year have varied backgrounds|page=A2|newspaper=Honolulu Star-Bulletin|date=January 23, 1967|url=http://newspapers.com/article/honolulu-star-bulletin/136896331/}} {{free access}} he hitchhiked across Africa where he first encountered a coral reef in Zanzibar, which inspired him to "spend a lot of [his] life under water".

Pryor and his wife first came to Hawaii in 1955. Discharged from the Marine Corps at the rank of captain in 1957, he then decided to attend graduate school at the University of Hawaii to study biology where he worked as a research assistant under zoology professor Albert L. Tester. It was during this time which he was inspired to found a marine exhibit and research centre for the islands; he and his wife Karen founded the Sea Life Park Hawaii at Makapuʻu Point in Oahu which opened in February 1964. He also founded the adjacent Oceanic Foundation, which mainly focused on the study of oceanography.{{cite news|title=Ariyoshi lauds 'Tap Pryor's dream'|url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-honolulu-advertiser/136809267/|date=July 1, 1972|newspaper=The Honolulu Advertiser|page=A10}} {{free access}} He served as Democratic member of the Hawaii State Senate from 1965 to 1966.{{cite web|title=Hawai'i State Senate 1959-2014, 55 Years of Statehood: A Chronicle of Legislative History|url=https://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/sessions/session2014/docs/SenateYearBook.pdf|publisher=Hawai'i State Senate|year=2014|access-date=December 14, 2023}} Pryor also was appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson to serve on the Stratton Commission on Marine Science, Engineering and Resources in 1967, which established the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

In the 1970s, he entered the field of aquaculture by establishing the Kahuku Seafood Plantation at Oahu, where he devised farming methods to produce large quantities of oysters and prawns.{{cite news|title=Pryor's plan|url=http://newspapers.com/article/the-honolulu-advertiser/136808867/|date=September 6, 1978|last=Hastings|first=Barbara|page=A6|newspaper=The Honolulu Advertiser}} {{free access}} It opened in 1981 at an abandoned World War II airstrip.{{cite news|title=Oyster Farm Opens|url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/honolulu-star-bulletin/136809041/|date=November 21, 1981|last=Altonn|first=Helen|page=1|newspaper=Honolulu Star-Bulletin}} {{free access}} The company went into bankruptcy in December 1982.{{cite news|title=Demise of Pryor's oyster farm costs the taxpayers $6.5 million|url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-honolulu-advertiser/136808943/|newspaper=The Honolulu Advertiser|page=1|last=Wright|first=Walter|date=August 10, 1983}} {{free access}} In the 1980s, Pryor served as a principal investigator on the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) and worked at the Duke University Marine Laboratory and University of Hawaii Eniwetok Marine Laboratory, and as Vice President-Research of Aquanautics Corporation.{{cite news|title=Giving Submarines Gills|url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/honolulu-star-bulletin/136809354/|newspaper=Honolulu Star-Bulletin|date=January 15, 1985|page=A14|last=Smyser|first=A.A.}} {{free access}}{{Cite web|url=https://umaine.edu/cooperative-aquaculture/2016/07/15/marine-pioneers-sylvia-earle-tap-pryor-meet-ccar/|title=Marine Pioneers Sylvia Earle and Tap Pryor Meet Again at CCAR - Center for Cooperative Aquaculture Research - University of Maine|date=July 15, 2016}} He also lived in the Cook Islands where he was deputy chief of staff to the prime minister and a government planner.{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rboVAQAAIAAJ&q=tap+pryor|title=Pacific Magazine|date=December 14, 1991|publisher=Pacific Magazine Corporation|via=Google Books}}

Pryor later moved to Brunswick, Maine, where he continued to remain active in aquaculture, helping to establish the state's first land-based recirculating aquaculture farm in 2012.{{Cite web|url=https://voices.nmfs.noaa.gov/tap-pryor|title=Tap Pryor | National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration|website=voices.nmfs.noaa.gov}}

He married Karen Wylie, whom he met at Cornell, in 1954 and they had three children. They divorced in 1975.{{cite web|url=https://karenwpryor.com/biography/|title=Karen Pryor Biography|year=2018|publisher=Karen Pryor|accessdate=March 8, 2018}}

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Category:Living people

Category:Cornell University alumni

Category:1931 births

Category:People from Greenwich, Connecticut

Category:Democratic Party Hawaii state senators

Category:20th-century American biologists

Category:American marine biologists

Category:Biologists from Hawaii

Category:20th-century members of the Hawaii State Legislature