A retired Kansas University psychology professor died and two other people were injured in a two-car, head-on collision Thursday afternoon near the Midland Junction just north of Lawrence.

Professor emeritus Paul V. Gump, 83, Oskaloosa, the driver of one of the cars, was pronounced dead at the scene.

A passenger in his car, his wife, Natalie Gump, 77, was taken to University of Kansas Hospital, Kansas City, Kan., by a LifeStar air ambulance. The Kansas Highway Patrol described her injuries as critical.

The driver of the second car, Vera D. Neal, 70, Williamsburg, was transported by ambulance to Lawrence Memorial Hospital, where she was treated and released.

The collision happened at 1:38 p.m. on a curve about 1/4 mile south of Midland Junction on U.S. Highway 24-59. Gump’s eastbound Toyota sedan went left of center and struck Neal’s westbound Mercury sedan, according to a Highway Patrol report.

A truck driver who witnessed the accident said he saw the two cars’ rear ends lift into the air upon impact.

U.S. 24-59 was closed in the accident’s vicinity and traffic rerouted while authorities worked the crash. The highway reopened about 4:15 p.m.

Paul Gump arrived at Kansas University in 1963 as associate professor. He was promoted to professor in 1967. Within the psychology department he was known for often playing a recorder while standing in his cramped office with as many as four or five other professors and students. Together, they sent airy Renaissance music throughout the building.

Law enforcement authorities and paramedics gather at the scene of a head-on collision on U.S Highway 24-59 near the Midland Junction. The wreck Thursday afternoon killed a Kansas University professor emeritus and injured two other people.

“People all over Fraser Hall would hear us,” recalled Franklin Shontz, a former professor and good friend of Gump’s. “We were not very good, but we just enjoyed playing together.”

While Gump’s musical skills may have lacked, he excelled in psychology research, said Howard Baumgartel, a former professor who heard the rehearsals from his office next door. Along with Roger Barker and Herb Wright, Gump gained renown for studies of how Lawrence and Oskaloosa high school social environments affected personality development.

Through a combination of that work and his small-town Ohio upbringing, Gump became an advocate of small schools, Shontz said.

“Small schools had all the things he as a psychologist would value in a child — participation, feeling needed, having a place for yourself,” Shontz said.

These studies of big school versus small schools, done in the 1950s and 1960s, still affect how school boards structure class sizes today, said Kathleen McCluskey-Fawcett, KU senior vice provost and a former psychology department colleague.

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Gump was a fixture in Oskaloosa. He, his wife and three now-grown children were longtime residents. There, the city was his laboratory. As a member of the Rotary Club, city councilman and host of an annual KU psychology department potluck picnic, he never missed an opportunity to observe how people interacted, Shontz said.

“That’s how he was — curious,” Shontz said. “But he made you feel so comfortable, you could easily underestimate how bright, intuitive and perceptive he was.”