Death of a Teacher

The other day, I heard from Dr. Marjorie Goss, who has retired from teaching at Cottey College to Oregon, that Mr. Bob Lawrence has died of cancer.

When I came to Cottey College in 1972 to teach in the English Department, Bob Lawrence was a member of its Art Department and had been for several years. He had been a commercial artist in the Chicago area for many years, but that life had not suited him, so he taught himself to teach and took a job down here in Nevada, at a time when a PhD was not yet required to teach. He enrolled in KU at Pittsburg to get his Masters of Science degree and taught himself ceramics with the parts from his wife Maggie's sewing machine.

I think Bob was very well-liked and respected by Cottey's students. He was a tireless worker on their behalf. He once told me, for instance, that his job as a teacher of ceramics required him to drive frequently from his house over to the school to fire up the kiln at 3 A.M. in Main hall. (This was in the day before computerized machinery that could turn itself on and off.) Bob was a quiet but hard worker.

But he managed to keep his priorities straight. He spent evenings and weekends with his wife Maggie and their daughters Julie and Valerie and Lisa. (His son Jerry had graduated from Nevada High and gone east long before I got a chance to meet him.) Bob was a very quiet but sociable man. In his tenure at Cottey he and his wife Maggie started a tradition of holding Friday early-evening get-togethers, where all faculty were welcome to come to their big old house on West Cherry for a glass of wine and a couple of cookies before embarking on the weekend.

Shortly after my little family arrived at Cottey, the fragile rapport between Cottey President Hondrum's administration and the Cottey faculty collapsed , and the faculty voted to unionize. The result was a years-long period of antagonism and back-biting on the part of everyone. Faculty and administration were at each others' throats. Bob Lawrence tried to be a peace-maker, and created a set of coffee mugs, one for each member of the faculty and administration, but was made to feel they were inappropriate gifts. He also created a series of so- called "Ugly Mugs," that were both delightful and unpolitical, but, unlike the faculty of other colleges and universities, he was not permitted to sell his creative works in the College bookstore.

In his dealings with others, students and other faculty and administrators, Bob Lawrence's hallmarks were supportiveness and patience. But there was a limit.

Bob talked his situation over with his family, and decided to retire. He retired to Tucson, Arizona.

He died surrounded by family and friends.