Thank you list, Part II...

begins at Miami-Dade Community College.  My first college courses were taken in classrooms on the base where I was stationed, Homestead Air Force Base.  It was about a 30 minute drive South of the South Campus of MDCC and there were courses offered on base by MDCC and Florida International University.  After one semester of classes on-base I decided I wanted more of a college experience.  So I enrolled in courses on campus in the evenings and made the drive there.  I apologize to the teachers there who were influential in my life, for not remembering their names.  I don't know if it's a sign that I'm aging, that my cognitive abilities were negatively impacted by my hospitalization, or if I simply didn't bother to learn how to refer to them except as "Professor".

There was a certain Communications professor, who I had three classes with.  She made me a better public speaker, more comfortable in front of an audience and ultimately, in front of a microphone.  By forcing us to practice impromptu speaking, she ensured that I learned to think fast on my feet. 

I took two semesters of Business law from a retired attorney who taught me to love the law.  He even got me to consider it briefly as a career.  Whatever I know today about contracts and other legal things that are important to know, I learned almost entirely from him.  Better still, he made dry material seem fascinating.

There was a Sociology professor who taught a class that was so popular I had to petition to get into it.  Once I was there, I found out why.  He made learning fun.  He organized us into groups for projects and required that everyone contribute to the project or the entire group would do poorly grade wise.  He had us going out after our classes to a local bar, as a "life-lab", where we would observe human interactions and then discuss them at the next class meeting.  It was voluntary, but there was extra-credit for doing this.  I definitely learned that certain pick-up lines are doomed to fail from the get-go.

My next assignment after Homestead was Andersen Air Base on Guam.  Fifteen long months during which I managed to take eight college courses while doing my Air Force job...which normally took up 55 hours a week.  It was a difficult stretch, made easier by the fact that the Los Angeles Metropolitan College counselor working in the Base Education office was extremely supportive.  She got me into classes I wanted, out of classes I needed to drop and without her, I wouldn't have earned six A's and two B's during that period.  One of the B's was in a University of Guam course that lasted four weeks, four nights a week, four hours a night, where no one earned an A.

The teacher from that time who stands out, and who definitely deserves to be thanked is Mr. Temoney.  Or more accurately, Dr. Temoney, since aside from his undergraduate degree and his Masters in Public Administration, he was also a Doctor of Divinity.  In spite of that, he'd joined the Air Force and become a Supply Officer.  He was the best of the adjunct instructors available on base and I took three of my eight courses from him.  Thanks to him, to this day, more than 30 years later, I can still recite the first four lines of the Canterbury Tales in the original Middle English.

Dr. Temoney taught me the meaning of trust during my final exam in Humanities.  I already had an A in the course, which may be why he didn't object to my leaving and returning during the final exam, when I was summoned in to the office, to cut orders for a sudden deployment.  He didn't worry that I might research answers to questions on the final, he just said go and hurry back.  He told me later he knew I wouldn't cheat and he was right.

My Business Data Processing teacher, whose name I can no longer recall taught me a very valuable lesson.  I thought I'd earned an A in the course and I hadn't and when he gave me a B, he told me why.  I learned if you want the grade, you have to do the work.

After Guam, it was off to the Deep South, to Biloxi, MS and Keesler AFB.  There was a college counselor at the Base Education office who was pushing me toward a program that would have led me to being sent to finish college at military expense, ending with me being awarded a commission as an officer.  I didn't want to go that route, and I learned the valuable lesson from her of not letting someone push you into doing something you don't want to do.  Even if it meant dropping a Trig class that I never wanted to sign up for in the first place.

There was an English professor who taught a Creative Writing course, that challenged me to write more, to write better, and to try to do something with my ability to write.  He taught me I wasn't nearly as bad a writer as I thought I was at the time.

After nearly 2.5 years in Mississippi, I treked to Kwang Ju, South Korea.  There was only one teacher there that I got anything of meaning from and I won't mention his name.  What he taught me was that you can really and truly know a subject and still be unable to teach it to students.  He was probably the worst teacher I ever experienced in college.

Then it was off to Las Vegas, my final military assignment.  My Poli Sci professor is the one who stands out there.  He was a lawyer who'd decided late in life to become a gerentologist, while continuing to teach a few classes.  Even back then, he had tuned into the upcoming polarization of politics in the U.S., and how single-issue politics would become a major factor in the coming extremes of partisanship.  He was oh so right.

My last college experience was through the fabulous on-line university, Western Governor's University.  Fully accredited through WASC for undergrad and graduate degrees, and the very first online university to ever be fully accredited.  All of the teachers were first rate.  But the person I need to thank is my guidance counselor, Rian Williams.  She pushed me, prodded me, cajoled me and got me to do more than I ever thought possible.  She helped by reviewing my papers prior to submission, gave great feedback and seemed to be truly interested in helping me to graduate.  I probably would not have finished nearly as quickly as I did without her.

Next list will be all of the people who were influential in my military career.