Great Teachers / Mentors
BACCELAUREATE

Fr. William McNiff, OSC: My English Comp teacher from the Monastery. Everybody said you were the most conservative Priest in all the orders of the Canons Regular...and that I was the most wayward seminarian in the history of the Catholic Church, somehow... we were great friends, and you were the first to recognize that writing may be among my more accessible talents... thank you... And I will never forget the word "Puce," and losing to you by one point in "The Scrabble Game of the Century." God Bless and keep you, as I cherish and keep the memory of you and what you taught me.

Robert Hayden: First Black Poet Laureate, of U.S. Library of Congress, and the man who recognized that first, and foremost, above all else... I am a poet, and so I say to you Old Master...

"On the live stage there are no retakes... Just a final curtain to be be drawn... The actor has no best choice to make... Once the house lights come up and on...

There are no deals that can be made With the dusk,the dark or the dawn... When the sun goes down It's too late... The day has already come and gone...

And which road does the farmer take... Back to the rain and the summer sun... To pay thanks for a yield so great... When the picking and plowing's done...

Likewise, how do I thank you for so many things, now that you are dead and long gone?"---Billi

Harvey Lembeck: During my extended "Junior Year Abroad... in Hollywood" so to speak... You taught me improvisation and how to act in 3-camera situation comedies at Paramount Studios...

In the way that only you could, like you did with Robin Williams, John Ritter, Penny Marshall and countless others... you did the same with me, i.e., made me a better actor than I ever hoped to be...and a better person than I was when I came to yoiu...

the only thing you did wrong... was leave this world to soon.

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SECONDARY
Martin Hammon-High School Chemistry Teacher / Tennis Coach: You were arguably the greatest Science teacher that ever lived. Whenever a science question, would arise, I would always call you at home on the phone for 20 years after I graduated... You taught me how to love and learn science.

John Lewis : High School English Teacher / Wrestling Coach: You were the first Black male teacher that I had, the first Black Male Coach that I had, the first person that ever took me a nice restaurant, the first Black man that I truly admired, You were the reason I was able to begin the long and arduous journey from the chagrin and self-loathing that is being Black in the heartland of Ike and Maine's America to self -love and acceptance...

Retrospectively understanding, the tremendous racial discrimination and career obstruction you endured at Dowagiac Union High.. I have even greater respect for you when you. didn't need DUHS... but we needed you...and you knew that... and so you stayed on... kind of like "To Sir With Love.." Thank you for being the greatest wrestling coach, ever. Thank you for having that great Afro, that everybody loved (white or black).... thank you for letting me drive your cool car. Thank you for planting the notion of dignity in me. Oh and thank you for making me wrestle Chris Taylor at the AAU in Grand Rapids... Thinking back, I could have won that match, if I wasn't so scared.

PRIMARY
Karen Gunn: 8th Grade Science You said to me once, "You're the kind of person that can be anything he chooses to be." In my adolescent world, where positive reinforcement was a a rare commodity at best, you can never know how precious those words were to me, or how they sustained me through the years. --Sorry I was such a disciplinary nightmare in your class"... but you know how adolescent boys are when they have crushes on "the cute new science teacher"...
Patricia Flewelling 4th Grade: You were the prettiest teacher at Patrick Hamilton. I remember lots of great things about you. You taught us Spanish when you didn't have to; you became friends with my mother and came to our house. You were the only white teacher that did anything like that. In 1963 when it was more than above and beyond the call of duty, it was an act of courage and political defiance.
Gwendolyn Manns: 3rd Grade: Every year for all those years you taught 3rd grade, you would write a play, and every kid in the class had a part, and not just a part, but a part that made each every one of us believe that we were "the star" of the play... and you taught us to play the flutophone. When they fashioned the word "super star," it was you, not Hepburn, they were talking about.

Mary White: 2nd Grade: For how many years did I hate you for making me stay in from recess all of those times to learn my basic arithmetic? How many times did you write my parents notes asking what was going on in our house? When they fashioned the euphemism, "great lady", you were who they were talking about ... I still have my second grade report card, with your signature, passing me to the third grsde.... but more importantly, I carry with me the signature of your tremendous successs as a teacher and a human being...

Thank-you for making sure I recieved the fundamental currency for survival...an excellent, solid, primary education.