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True to that school

Professor Duane Smith gives last FLC lecture

Once historian Duane Smith makes a commitment, he keeps it:

54 years married to his wife and editor, Gay.

49 years as a professor of history at Fort Lewis College.

50 years as a member of First United Methodist Church of Durango.

30 years on the city of Durango’s Parks & Recreation Advisory Board.

Decades on the board of the La Plata County Historical Society, but the historian doesn’t remember how many.

Writing, as the author of 55 books and weekly columns for The Durango Herald for more than 20 years.

76 years, a lifetime, fruitlessly rooting for the Chicago Cubs.

On Thursday, he gave what was billed as his “Last Lecture” at the Community Concert Hall at FLC to a full house of fellow faculty, staff, community members, college supporters and generations of former students.

“I tried to steal him when I was at (the University of New Mexico),” said former FLC President Joel Jones about the man of the hour. “A couple of our professors knew him and said, ‘He’ll never leave that college. He’s made a commitment to that school and to those students.”

The lecture was funny, as those who know Smith would it expect it to be, but Smith also took time to share favorite quotes and moving moments from his own lifetime of studying history.

How he got here

Smith remembers well when he first became engaged with history.

“My dad was in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp with Wade Hampton Morgan, the grandson of a famous Confederate general,” he said. “When my dad got home after the war, when I was just a little kid, Morgan took us out to the site where the Battle of Bull Run was fought and talked about what his grandfather had done. I was really struck by the continuity of history.”

But becoming a teacher wasn’t in his plans.

“As a kid, the last thing I ever wanted was to be a teacher,” Smith said. “Even in high school, if I listed 100 jobs I might do, it would have been 90th or 100th on the list.”

It may have been low on his list then, but he became a memorable teacher.

“You’ve got to know your stuff to stand up in front of a class or be eaten alive, as I’ve learned,” said Smith’s former Colorado history student Devon Parson, who graduated in 2007 and now teaches in the transition program for Durango School District 9-R. “He never had notes, he’d just start talking. He has such a wealth of knowledge. And I liked how he whistled when he walked around campus.”

Smith took a look at 49 years of grade books and estimates he taught between 5,000 and 6,000 students during his unmatched tenure at the school. It’s hard to be exact because many students took more than one class with him.

“Some students would like me to come back and teach my baseball (and the American Dream) course,” he said. “I’d do it if all I had to do was come in and talk. But I’m tired of grading papers and students complaining about grades or this and that.”

He’s not tired of writing and researching, though, with four manuscripts at various stages of completion and a couple of ideas on other stories waiting to be told.

And he will never forget when his penchant for wearing costumes almost got him in trouble. Dressed in his Union Army uniform, similar to the one his great-grandfather wore, Smith was on campus with his 1863 Springfield rifle, complete with bayonet.

“I walked in my class with the campus police right behind me,” he said. “But I wanted my students to see what they fought with.”

Memorable moments

If anyone is quotable, it’s Smith. Some standouts from the lecture:

“When I came here, professors wore suits, soon it was sports coats, now it’s jeans and slacks. I saw the whole evolution, and I’m not sure Darwin got it right.”

“Everything I learned of value, I learned from being a Cubs fan.”

“Someone said, ‘Why don’t we name a room after you? Why don’t we name a nap room?’ I’m happy to say I never took a nap in class, but the students who did said it was one of the best naps they ever had.”

“Lincoln’s farewell address when he left Springfield (Ill.) to go to Washington is the essence of Lincoln, and because he was a better writer than I’ll ever be, I’ll use his ending, ‘To this place (school), and the kindness of these people, I owe everything. Here I have lived a quarter of a century (make that a half) and have passed from a young to an old man. ... So with malice toward none, and charity toward all, here depart I.”

abutler@durangoherald.com

On the Net

Professor Duane Smith’s final lecture was streamed live online, with friends and alumni watching it around the world.

The complete lecture and segments including the question-and-answer period will be posted on YouTube.



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