Tse Cheng Sheng

A celebration of Ted's life will be held from 11:00 to 1:00 Monday, October 25th at Rolland Moore Park, 2201 South Shields St., Ft. Collins. Open to all family and friends.

Tse Cheng Sheng, 97, of Fort Collins, Colorado, peacefully passed away in his sleep at 5:45 am on October 16, 2021

Ted, preferred to be called, was born in Jiaxing, Zhejiang, China, one of six children of Tsu Ming and Zane Hua Sheng. He is survived by his loving wife Chuan Shen of 74 years; two sons and their spouses, Tom and Patti of Fort Collins, Colorado, and Richard and Nola of Shanghai, China; five grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren.

Ted met Chuan in Suzhou, China. They married in 1947 in China and moved to Taiwan in 1948, Jamaica in 1968, El Salvador in 1975, Thailand in 1977, Jamaica in 1980, and Fort Collins in 1985.

Ted received his B.S. in agronomy from the Zhejiang University in Hangzhou in 1947 and M.S. in watershed management from the Colorado State University in Fort Collins in 1966.

Ted had a long and exciting professional career as a forester with Hualien Forest District Office, Forestry Bureau, Council of Agriculture, Taiwan from 1948 to 1952; a watershed management specialist with the Chinese American Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction (JCRR), Taipei, Taiwan, from 1953 to 1968; a technical expert with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome, Italy from 1968 to 1984; an honored professor with the Colorado State University from 1985 to 1995; and a senior associate with the Computer Assisted Development, Inc., Fort Collins from 1993 to 2004. His remarkable career brought him to Taiwan, Jamaica, El Salvador, and Thailand and short-term assignments to Bolivia, Costa Rica, Haiti, Indonesia, Jamaica, Myanmar, Peru, Philippines, Saint Lucia, Taiwan, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, and Turkey. As a result, Ted published over 40 watershed management-related papers and books. In 1991, Ted received the Soil and Water Conservation Society's highest award – Hugh H. Bennett Award in Kentucky.

Ted was also a well-known poet in Taiwan under the pen name Hsia Ching and published many poems and short essays in Chinese newspapers in the U.S. and Taiwan. His first poetry book "Quiet Woods" was published in 1954, followed by 19 books of poems and essays from 1957 to 2014. He was one of the founders of the famous Blue Star Poetry Society in Taiwan in the early Fifties; served as the consultant for the Poetry Sky, the first English-Chinese bilingual poetry journal in the U.S.; one of the poets in the Colorado Poets Center; and interviewed on the poetry show at KRFC radio on November 20, 2011, in Fort Collins. In 2017, Ted received the Medal of Honor from the Chinese Literary Arts Association in Taiwan.

Ted was a proud, honest, and kind-hearted Christian. He was a devoted husband, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. His final wish was that the Sheng families continue to love one another and live together in peace and harmony. He will be missed dearly.

Ted generously shared his knowledge and life experience through his books and poems with the world. His autobiography "A Folding Fan" shared his perspective on life in 2010:



Our whole life is like a folding fan
One side is a painting of Spring mountains
On the other side, a poem of Autumn rains
It starts to unfold, leaf by leaf, in our youth
And onto itself, it will fold when we get old
Till a cool breeze is all that is left to behold

Translated from Chinese to English by Ma Wei, New York in 2020.




For more information, please visit:

Collection of TC Sheng technical papers in Colorado State University Libraries
https://lib2.colostate.edu/archives/findingaids/water/wtcs.html
https://mountainscholar.org/handle/10217/100000/browse?type=author&value=Sheng%2C+Ted+C.%2C+author

Watershed management field manuals-Watershed survey and planning, FAO of the United Nations, Rome, Italy
https://www.fao.org/3/t0165e/t0165e00.htm
https://www.fao.org/3/t0099e/t0099e00.htm

Colorado Poets Center
https://coloradopoetscenter.org/poets/ching_hsia/index.html

Poetry Sky
http://www.poetrysky.com/quarterly/23/hsiaching.html