I'm a 1977 graduate of Riverside High School. Dr. Mike Farmer was my chemistry teacher during my senior year and one of the
things I always recall Mike telling us seniors
as he prepared us for college is that "college is just hard high
school." Mike was wrong.
His high school class was hard, very hard...and it was harder than any course I ever took in college. Now, I readily admit I was not the brightest
element in the periodic table. In fact, Perry Grubbs, who was my 10th grade
math teacher, has long since forgotten
that I stopped understanding math when the alphabet got involved. So, chemistry
really challenged me...but I was smart enough to sit beside Berta (Hamby) Hopkins, herself a future science PhD and
colleague of Mike's, and I got much of my remedial chemistry education from her.
I did make it through chemistry and I went on to college,
had a long career as a USAF officer,
earned a couple of advanced degrees and now I teach online in the graduate program for the USAF's Air University...but to
this day, I consider earning my "C" in Mike's class as my biggest academic
achievement. And while I don't remember
much about chemistry I've always
recalled the most important thing Mike taught me and that's how to approach life. This was perfectly illustrated in a simple
story he once told us. Seems there was a newly married couple. One day the husband was watching his new bride preparing some bacon she was about to
fry and she was cutting off both ends of the bacon.
"Why are you cutting off the ends," he asked? She said, "that's the way my mom did it." So the next time they were with her mother
they asked her why she cut the ends off
the bacon before frying it. "That's
the way my mom did it," she replied.
Well, the next time they were all
together with the grandmother they asked her why she cut the ends off of the bacon before frying
it. "My, my children," grandma
replied, "the reason I cut off the
ends of the bacon was so it would fit in my frying pan!"
Of course the point
of Mike's story was to illustrate the importance of asking why? To not
accept the status quo. To be
inquisitive. To look deeper. To
think. It's a lesson I took with me into the Air Force. Over the years as I rose in rank I had more
and more officers working for me and
many were young lieutenants recently out of college. As they'd
transfer into my unit, I'd sit down with them to share my leadership philosophy
and at some point I'd tell the
"bacon story" my high school chemistry teacher told me as an example of how I wanted them to approach
their duties. Back in 2012 when we had the Riverside charter classes reunion, I
shared this story with Mike and I think he was genuinely touched.
We, the former
students of teachers, are part of their legacy...and for the good teachers like Dr. Mike Farmer, his legacy is
exponentially larger because his impact was so widespread.
Mine is but one life he impacted and I'm honored to have known and learned from
this great man.
Contributed by Ken Lynn,
Riverside High School
Class of 1977
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