Published: October 22, 2009 10:54 pm         

Always listen to what others have to say

Following up on last week’s column, which explored teachers from the past, I sure don’t want to overlook instructors post-high school.

And by that, I don’t necessarily mean profs from college, although I sure had some dandies.

By chance, my favorite had very close ties to Garfield County and my hometown. Louise Beard Moore was my student newspaper faculty adviser at the OU School of Journalism when I made the transition from secondary school to the ivy-covered walls of the university in Norman.

Anyway, Mrs. Moore was a dear lady, who grew up in the Waukomis-Bison community, and told me she had waited her entire career to have a student from Waukomis finally come under her tutelage.

Wow, how lucky was I?

I learned a bunch about how newspapers operate, how to write headlines, cover stories, edit copy, deal with sources .... all the stuff you do for a newspaper. You can add her to my long list of favorite teachers.

But it’s a couple of late professors affiliated with this area who I’d like to tackle today — Bill Snodgrass and Tibbie Shades.

Both were long-time professors at Phillips University, and both are names which a number of readers will identify.

Dr. William Snodgrass was a history instructor at Phillips who had a passion for the American Civil War, so you probably can see where I’m headed.

Since I’ve had an obsession for those four years of American history since the fourth grade, the very first Christmas present I remember getting was a large volume of the American Heritage Picture History of the Civil War.

I thought I’d died and gone to heaven when I opened the package containing that book. I’ve never had a gift since that equaled it.

But getting back to Bill Snodgrass, he helped position me on a path to learning more about the war than the synopsis-style pages of school history books. He steered me toward obtaining books that dealt with individual subjects and aspects of America’s greatest conflict.

So, in a different sort of way, he too became one of my teachers.

But I’d like to reserve my greatest fondness for Dr. C.T. Shades. I never had him in class, but I learned much just talking to the man every time he stopped by our weekly newspaper office, which was frequently.

You see, Tibbie had a way of making you feel smarter than you really were. Or, at least, that was my perception.

Back in 1998, I somehow talked the late English professor into penning a fairly short trivia column in the Waukomis weekly, centered around reminisces of his childhood and the area.

It was like a living, breathing history lesson every week.

Not that everything he wrote was earth shattering, but it reflected a rich wealth of knowledge he possessed, and a keen eye for the detailed minutiae of growing up in Garfield County, from the days of the horse and wagon through the Model-T and up to the end of the millennium.

But what I most remember about the man was his sage advice. And while he dispensed it on a regular basis, it always was subtle. He didn’t beat you over the head to make a point, but he pushed you to see another side of things that would allow you to make an informed opinion.

Wow, what a concept.

It’s too bad we have lost that in today’s world of instant news, blogs, e-mail, Twitter and entertainment shows trying to pass off as mainstream journalism.

Anyway, there was one day in particular I remember Tibbie stopping in to pay his yearly subscription. It was a hot, August day on Waukomis’ Main Street, no different than any other summer day on any other small-town street in America.

What made this day special was the wisdom Tibbie imparted.

After paying his bill, we began talking about a column I had written on a subject I since have been unable to recall. But the upshot was unforgettable. He told me he had read and re-read my piece, which I do remember was of a vaguely political nature on a topic of the day.

Tibbie said at first he pretty much had disagreed with the premise of my writing, but upon reading it again, was struck by the fact he had never looked at the issue from the perspective I presented.

He complimented me on my thoughtful management of the topic, and told me he had learned long ago to pay attention to other points of view.

“My mother always used to tell me,” he said in his best professorial voice, “always listen to what the other guy has to say, because he may just be right.”

Since that August day I’ve tried to live by that profound principle.

Now, if we could just temper all of today’s partisan political noise and employ Tibbie’s uncomplicated philosophy ... would we in this nation ever have another bad day?



Christy is news editor at the News & Eagle, and may be reached at davidc@enidnews.com