MEMORY BOOK ENTRY \u2013 Ed Kropa<\/p>\n

After leaving Kenyon I enrolled in the Ohio State mathematics graduate school.\u00a0 I remember watching Kennedy\u2019s Cuban Missile Crisis speech in a tiny restaurant on a flickering b&w TV.\u00a0 The next year Bob Dudgeon and I got together and rented an apartment in north Columbus.\u00a0 Bob had started in math at Case Western and transferred.\u00a0 As a residual of Sputnik, OSU undergraduate was requiring ROTC or a math class at the college algebra level or higher.\u00a0 To deliver the class to a large number of students, lectures were done via closed circuit TV to multiple classrooms.\u00a0 Graduate student types were in the rooms to answer questions following lectures.\u00a0 Early on the camera was set up in the back of the room to shoot the blackboard.\u00a0 Soon the camera was moved to the the ceiling and the lecturer wrote on acetate like used for overheads \u2013 a big improvement as the camera didn\u2019t have to move to follow the topic.\u00a0 Little did we know but Bob and I experienced very early distance learning.<\/p>\n

We drove to JFK\u2019s funeral, leaving when the radio went to classical music at midnight.\u00a0 I suspect the lack of a television prompted our seeking a way to be more involved in the event.\u00a0 We got there in time to get on the route to the funeral and watched that phalanx of world leaders march by.\u00a0 I remember Charles de Gaulle a half step ahead on the front row.\u00a0 The memory of that riderless horse still gets to me \u2013 it seemed the horse wanted to get loose to run and exhaust itself in anger.<\/p>\n

Just as the procession came into view, windows opened up behind us and one couldn\u2019t help but think the worst.\u00a0 Our coats were bulky enough we could have had weapons underneath \u2013 we were never checked.<\/p>\n

Once the procession passed we walked to Arlington and while we weren\u2019t able to get close enough to see the ceremonies, we happened to be standing where we were split by officials making a path for the Senate to get to their place.\u00a0 Seems like we could hear pretty well.<\/p>\n

I got a teaching job in late summer the next year at The College of Saint Mary\u2019s of the Springs (now Ohio Dominican) and did that for a year or two and came to believe the wisdom of that saying \u201cIf you can\u2019t teach, administrate\u201d and moved over to Admissions.\u00a0 Financial Aid was were I thought I should be but that spot was blocked so I started looking and ended up at Iowa Wesleyan College in Mount Pleasant, Iowa where I did Financial Aid, Admissions and Registrar in several combinations for 43 years retiring at commencement May of 2011, with the title of Registrar Emeritus.<\/p>\n

I met my future wife at OSU through somebody Bob knew \u2013 the old fix up business.\u00a0 My first year in Iowa she taught elementary art for a year in Troy, Ohio and we were married the next summer (1968).\u00a0 She was able to get an elementary art position in Mount Pleasant that fall so that worked out well and gave us a good start during the DINK years.\u00a0 I guess you could say we simply grew where we were planted \u2013 I got pulled into community betterment projects and boards \u2013 she became an appreciated artist and teacher, illustrated and wrote books for an educational publisher.\u00a0 I am most proud of my involvement with saving the empty in-town, art deco high school building and its jewel box auditorium and refurbishing it for new public library and community center space.\u00a0 Two boys successfully launched.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MEMORY BOOK ENTRY \u2013 Ed Kropa After leaving Kenyon I enrolled in the Ohio State mathematics graduate school.\u00a0 I remember watching Kennedy\u2019s Cuban Missile Crisis speech in a tiny restaurant on a flickering b&w TV.\u00a0 The next year Bob Dudgeon … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/kenyon62.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/297"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/kenyon62.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/kenyon62.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kenyon62.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kenyon62.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=297"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/kenyon62.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":299,"href":"http:\/\/kenyon62.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/297\/revisions\/299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/kenyon62.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}