William P. Bidelman—Editor of these Publications from 1956 to 1961—passed away on 2011 May 3 , at the age of 92 .
He was one of the last of the masters of visual stellar spectral classification and the identification of peculiar stars .
I review his contributions to these subjects , including the discoveries of barium stars , hydrogen-deficient stars , high-galactic-latitude supergiants , stars with anomalous carbon content , and exotic chemical abundances in peculiar A and B stars .
Bidelman was legendary for his encyclopedic knowledge of the stellar literature .
He had a profound and inspirational influence on many colleagues and students .
Some of the bizarre stellar phenomena he discovered remain unexplained to the present day .