Robert E.R. Huntley May 14, 1996 Mame Warren, interviewer Warren: This is Mame Warren. Today is the fourteenth ofMay 19~6. I'm in Lexington, Virginia, with Robert Huntley. We were just talking about Rupert Latture, and I remember him so well; he was a constant presence just outside your door. Huntley: Ye~ he was, and my predecessor, Fred Cole. He was in the same role for Fred that he did for me. But it wasn't his role for me that was significant, he had an enormous institutional memory as well as personal memory of all the students and faculty who had ever been here during his very long years at Washington and Lee. He loved people and, of course, he was devoted to Washington and Lee so that he was able to make people, both those who were living and working here then and students here then, and those who had ever been here, feel at home at W&L in a way that almost no one else could do. He greeted freshmen every year, I'm sure for twenty-five years, when they came in. He knew virtually every student on the campus, both present and past, and made them feel that it was very special for them to be here. He was invaluable in many ways, but that's the main one that I remember about him. Warren: What did he teach? Huntley: Political science. He retired before I became president, a good while before. Then Fred Cole asked him to serve in this special role as, I suppose, an assistant to the president, I believe we called him, not something you would ask many to do. He had a second career, is the main one I remember, is his second career. I didn't actually have him as a teacher, so I can't comment on that. But his second career lasted a long time because he lived to a ripe old age, as you know, and he was sort of part of the institution that's very much missed. He would've been fun to talk to, if you would've been able to get to him. I al 'ays was hoping that someone would 1 do an oral history while Rupert was around to talk. Warren: As far as I know, no one ever did. Huntley: No one ever did. Warren: It's such a shame. Huntley: No one ever did. He was one ofthe founders ofODK, which you know was founded here back in the-you'd have to look up the year, but probably 1915 or something like that. He's literally part ofthe institution's history. And, as I mentioned earlier, Bill Pusey, he would have been equally interesting to talk to. So rm sorry you didn't get a chance to talk with him, and, of course, Jim Leyburn. I miss those people. But you' re right, in the earlier comments that the most distinctive feature about Washington and Lee is its people, now and in the past, I think. Warren: When you think back, who were those really important people to you? Let's go all the way back to when you were an undergrad1:1ate. In fact, where did you come from? Huntley: North Carolina. Warren: What drew you to Washington and Lee in the first place? Huntley: Well, my brother had been here, but that just pushes the question one step further back, I guess. My parents had been friends of the Gaineses. Dr. Gaines was president of Washington and Lee for a quarter of a century, which I'm sure you have read, and was president when I came here. My parents knew Dr. Gaines before he came to Washington and Lee as president. He'd been president at Wake Forest College in North Carolina, and my father was an alumnus ofWake Forest, my mother was from the town of Wake Forest. The college was then located in the town of Wake Forest, it's now located in Winston-Salem, as you know, but in those years it was located in Wake Forest. They came to know the Gaineses personally while the Gaineses were in Wake Forest, and became friends, and I suspect that was the-I knew the Gaineses from my childhood. Our ../ families took summer vacations together when we were all children, when their children and my brother and I were-you know, we took vacations together, so we knew them from years, and I'm sure it was that relationship that attracted my brother and then me to come to W&L. Most folks from North Carolina go to North Carolina, as you know. [Laughter] They go to one of the North Carolina schools. Warren: Had you been on campus before you started here? 2 Huntley: Well, yes, we'd been up to visit my brother, who is four years older than I am, went up to visit him on some occasions while I was in high school, and I had been up to the Gaineses once or twice. So, yes, I'd been on campus. It never occurred to me to go anywhere else. I never sought to go anywhere else, to either undergraduate or law school. So it was automatic, it seemed. [Tape recorder turned off.] Warren: So you mentioned President Gaines. Tell me about him. Huntley: Well, he was an extraordinary man, as I'm sure others have told you. He had the most winning and winsome personality and manner of anyone I've ever known, and not referring just to his public speaking for which he was so well-known and about what you must have heard, an orator of the kind that we don't have anymore, that no one has anymore. I don't mean, we, Washington and Lee don't have anymore, I mean that don't exist anymore. But apart from his public presence, he could enter a room and everyone in the room would feel at home and part of the group instantly, immediately, right that minute. And that's a rare talent I'm not sure I've ever encountered to the same degree in anybody else. He also had a powerful intellect and a great devotion and vision for Washington and Lee. So he was a gripping personality. No one who ever knew him would ever forget him. And so was she, his wife Sadie duVernge, a delightful and beautiful lady who complemented his ) personality. He was a grand person. I knew him as a child and then when I came back here as a student. He was president when I came here to work. So I knew him in all three capacities, right until the time he died. I saw him the day he died. So they were grand people, and I was devoted to them. I came back here to teach, in large part because of him, or in part, certainly. Dean ofthe law school in those days when I came back to teach was Clayton Williams, another marvelous character in Washington and Lee's history, who had taught me, of course, when I was a law student. I had no intention whatever of teaching. The thought had never really crossed my mind. I was practicing law in Northern Virginia with a firm, a good firm in Northern Virginia, enjoying it. I had been there about a year, only about a year, and Dean Williams called and asked if he could come by and see me, and came by to see me and asked me if I'd consider coming back to teach. That was the first time the thought had come to my mind. It seemed an exciting thing to me:, just instantly knew that's what I wanted to do, and it was in a matter of a few weeks thereafter I agreed to come back and did that year:, teach in the 3 law school. Then I stayed on to the memory of man runneth not to the contrary. [Laughter] I had no intention of doing anything other than teaching, no intention ofbecoming an administrator, no expectations. No desire, actually, to become administrator. Those things just happened as time went on. But I enjoyed the teaching enormously. Those were very happy years, all my years here were. Teaching years were wonderful. I taught for ten or so years and then ended up in administration, just as circumstance turned out. That's sort of, I think, one ofthe characteristics ofWashington and Lee's past, I suspect, its present, that most of the people who held the positions, the academic positions and the dean positions and so on at Washington and Lee, were there as an incident of their teaching. Very, very few of them, rm trying to think if there were any, were seen primarily as administrators. Warren: I think Leyburn came to be the dean. Huntley: Well, yes, he did come to be the dean, but he was not seen primarily as an administrator, at least not by the students, and I don't know that he was by his colleagues. Leyburn' s greatest strength was his teaching, while he was dean. I'm sure he would have placed his teaching on a higher level of importance than his administration, certainly he did. Too bad he's not here so you could ask him, but I know that's what his answer would be. So he did come back, he was brought back by Gaines to be Dean of the University, only Dean of the University I think we'd ever had. You might want to check that, but I think that's right. But he taught. I had him. He taught me the first year he was here, which I think was 1948. I was a sophomore undergraduate student. He taught me in his basic course in sociology, which was a wonderful course. I was gripped by him. Everybody was, whoever had him as a teacher. So I remember him mainly as a teacher, then subsequently as a friend after I came back to teach, he was still here teaching. He was no longer dean. He remained many years after he was dean. I don't remember how many years he was dean now, but a decade perhaps. Then went to full-time teaching and brought in strong faculty in his department, and he was responsible for bringing strong faculty to other departments while he was dean. He was an extraordinary person. But all ofthose people, Leyburn specifically included in that group, saw their highest mission as their relationships with the students and with other faculty, from a teaching perspective. Perhaps that wasn't unique to Washington and Lee, I think that was a more common characteristic of colleges in those days than it is now, across the country, but I think 4 Washington and Lee had, and has, preserved that perspective to a greater degree than most have. I can recall having to talk people into taking dean positions. That was rarely seen as a step up. [Laughter] It was seen as an obligation and a duty, and that would have been the view that Pusey would've had ofthe job, Bill Watt would have had ofthe job. Are you going to talk to Bill? Warren: Yes. Huntley: Well, ask him. Warren: I will. Huntley: That Atwood would have had of the job, that even the dean of students, I believe, Lew John, would have had of the job. Agai~ he thought of himself primarily as a teacher. He's here, you can ask him that. Did that mean that they were not as expert as managers as they would have been had they been professional managers? I don't know. I don't think so. I think they had to sort of learn the management job as they did it, but they were bright fellows and, I guess, didn't find that to be too tough a study, especially since their objectives were to facilitate the lives of the people around them, as distinguished from elevating their own ambitions, and if those are the objectives of the people who are running the institution, it tends to make management easier, I think. I believe that's continued to be the attitude of the people who work here now, best I can see. That's why when you talk to alumni and others who've been here, I think you'll find it true, almost invariably, and you need to talk to them, and you will, I'm sure. You have talked to some alumni, but you're probably not going to talk as many as you can. I've talked with thousands of alumni over the years. The thing they nearly almost always remember first and speak of most emphatically is their relationships with the other students and the faculty. The communal spirit in the place, that's what they think about first. They'll add other things, but that's the first thing, for those who like the place. Now, of course, there are always those who didn't. In most cases, those who didn't, didn't because for some reason the personal relationships didn't work for them. And I'm sure there were such-I know there were such people. But for the majority, the community was a special place which they had never seen before and have never seen since. This is what explains the depth oftheir commitment to the school. It's what makes it possible for us to live in the style to which we've become accustomed. 5 Warren: Having just experienced my first Reunion Weekend, I know exactly what you mean. It was a remarkable scene. Huntley: It is. And if you look at just the most tangible output of that sentiment, it is the financial support ofthe school, because, as I'm sure you know, the vast bulk of the school's funds has come from individuals, ordinary human beings who went to school here. The vast majority of it has come from them, all through the years and still does. Although while that again is probably not unique, it is extraordinary. Washington and Lee is not, for the most part, institutionally financed; it's personally financed. And from a practical point ofview, one of the good results of that is that no single person or institution has a claim on the school. The school is not beholding to any organization or institution or person or group of people by reason of finance. So it provides enormous opportunity for independence in the true sense of the institution. One of the curious things about Washington and Lee's early history, I think, is that it never formally at1iliated with any organization, even with the church, which, again, I believe, probably is unique, if you go back to the early years of the schools that were in existence in the colonial days and the immediate post-colonial period. State universities, for the most part, hadn't come along. They all were essentially church-related. Washington and Lee, of course, was founded by Scotch-Irish Presbyterians in the Valley of Virginia, but was never affiliated with a church or any other organization. So the devotions of the alumni is a fortunate thing for the school, it truly is. But that's the thing they mention first, the personal relationships, I think. Warren: You know, one thing I'm curious about is the students, and because my concentration has been on alumni, I haven't really talked to that many present-day students, but those that I have already seem to have that sense of obligation. Huntley: Yeah, I think that's right. Warren: Was that true when you were a student? Huntley: I talk with them, too, and I found that to be true. Yes, it was true. Warren: When you were a student, how did you come to that realization? Huntley: Well, I really don't know. It sort of seeped in. I don't think anybody ever gave a speech to us telling us that we were obligated. If anybody ever did, I don't remember it. Even Gaines, with his oratorical ability, I don't recall his ever giving a speech to the students saying, 6 "Now, listen here young fellows, you're obligated." Ifhe did, I don't remember it. So it wasn't something explicitly taught. I'm sure they're not now. But it does, and again not for all of them, of course, but for a substantial percentage ofthe students, they leave here feeling that they've inherited something from the past and they owe something to the future both financially and otherwise. There are down sides to that, the down side being that alumni are very thin-skinned about Washington and Lee. They think it belongs to them. They don't think that in a literal sense, but they think they're entitled to a view on what goes on here. Warren: Tell me more about that. Huntley: Well, they do, for the reasons we've already mentioned. So when things occur that they don't like or that they do like, they're outspoken. And, of course, they can only be so well informed. No matter how close they are, their level of information is not nearly as good as that of the folks who are here all the time. So sometimes they have reactions to Washington and Lee's this-or-that action that is not well informed and is emotional. Other times, though, they bring a viewpoint to bear on a problem that you would have otherwise overlooked. There's some advantageous to being remote enough from the daily grind to have a special view about it. So the people who run the school, the presidents and others who run the school need to understand that, and they do understand it. I give Gaines a lot of credit for that and for having deve.loped a relationship with alumni that is healthy. They don't run the school, but their attitudes about the school are taken quite seriously, and a lot of effort is spent to communicate with them in ways that I think are generally good. But, as I say, it has both sides. Alumni do--you can sense that at the Reunion Weekend, they have a proprietary as well as an emotional interest in the institution. I guess that's good. Everybody else here does, too. The faculty and the present students think that. Warren: And the people who've just come on board, like me. I already care a great deal about this place. Huntley: One of the interesting things is, of course, again, there are exceptions, but rarely, so rarely that I could name them on the fingers of one hand, though I shan't, can I recall anyone's leaving Washington and Lee whom we wanted to remain. Now, there are some exceptions, but they're rare. Most folks who come here to work want to stay, and a lot of folks who come here to school want to stay, which the size of the town ofLexington doesn't permit. [Laughter] 7 Warren: I remember when I first moved here in 1977, being very impressed at how well educated all the carpenters were. Huntley: [Laughter] Philosophy majors at Washington and Lee, that's right. Warren: Sometimes you had to remind them to pound the nails. Huntley: That's right. Warren: They were always thinking about what the nails were thinking about the operation. Huntley: Oh, dear, you're quite right. Warren: So let's go back to your undergraduate days. Huntley: Well, I was an indifferent undergraduate, an indifferent student, not a very good student. I had a marvelous time here. I was probably a little slow to grow up. I came to school here when I was just barely seventeen. I'd just turned seventeen. The average age of the student body in 1946 was probably, I'm guessing, probably twenty-two or three. Well, see, World War II was just over and the returning veterans constituted the majority of the student body, three-fourths of it, I guess. So it was an unusual time to be a seventeen-year-old on the Washington and Lee campus. It was a marvelous time. I had a wonderful four years, lots of friends, whom I've still got, and I managed to learn something in the process, despite an indifferent approach to academia. I had some great teachers, Leyburn and Pusey, for example. Warren: Who else? Huntley: Who eventually managed to stimulate even an intellect as dull as mine. Bill Jenks was teaching here then. He retired recently, a marvelous teacher. Steve Stephenson was a brand-new young teacher. He'd just started in 1946, died a year or so ago, I guess. A German teacher. My math professor was Livingston Waddell Smith, great mathematical mind and a wonderful character. The faculty was populated with characters. It probably still is, but we tend to think of characters from our own past. Smith was just a marvelous character. Warren: Why was he a character? Huntley: Well, he was a brilliant mathematician and most ofus certainly weren't, and he tolerated us, but not always willingly. In class, I recall he would send you to the board to work out a mathematical problem or whatever, and would allow you to get to a certain point, say you were stuck, and you would say, for example, I can recall him saying, ~~Mr. Huntley, what's the sign there, is it a plus? Is it a plus?" "Yes, sir, ifs a plus." 8 "Hell, no! It's a minus!" [Laughter] There were many legends about Smith throwing erasers. He would throw erasers out the window. He would throw erasers and once he threw one out the window while I was there in his class. He would vent his spleen at the students in that way, but a wonderful teacher. Winter Royston taught me math, also. He's still here, still alive. Warren: Who's that? Huntley: Winter Royston. He's right here in town. History department, ifl were to mention Dr. Jenks and Dr. Crenshaw, taught me. Dr. Bean, W. G. Bean, was a wonderful teacher, a great style about him. "Now, you want to watch this man. He going to merge," meaning '"emerged". That meant in the early days of a history course, he would want to identify the people who would be important through the remainder of the course. 11You want to watch him. He gonna merge," is what that meant. Wonderful teacher. I'11 tell you somebody you ought to talk to is Roger Mudd. Have you talked to Mudd? Warren: Not yet. We're going to talk in the fall. Huntley: Ask Mudd about Dr. Bean, for example. There's a lot of stories about Dr. Bean. Dr. Moger, I mentioned him, wonderful history professor. I was an English major, and as I say, eventually an intellect as uninterested as mine was, was able to be stimulated by an English teacher. We had some wonderful English teachers. The heads of the department were Drs. Flournoy and Moffatt. Fitzgerald Flournoy was Washington and Lee's first Rhodes Scholar. You can see his picture over there on the wall in the library of Rhodes Scholars. He was a professor ofEnglish, but principally Shakespeare and latter-day drama, also, but Shakespeare was his-I always thought Flournoy believed himself to be Falstaff I never had any actual proof ofthat. He was a grand figure and a marvelous classroom performer and spoke in stentorian tones. I remember the students using him at Fancy Dress from time to time, would ask him to the be the caller, to introduce the couples as they would come down the aisle, because of his wonderful way of speaking. He was an exciting teacher, absent-minded, almost to the nth degree. I recall on more than one occasion his beginning to teach the wrong class, within the classroom. He would begin on subject A, when, in fact, this was the class on Subject B. We'd begin on Ibsen when it was a class on Shakespeare or something. He would usually catch himself. 9 Warren: Did anyone ever have to remind him? Huntley: Once or twice. Although also once or twice, no one ever did, and he went right through teaching the wrong subject. [Laughter] He was a marvelous character. He was not great on student names. He never knew my name, although I was an English major. He knew me, but he didn't know my name. In fact, I'd graded papers for Dr. Flournoy. I guess it's true, I bet it's true, though I don't have any way of proving it, this is the only instance in the school's history when we had graders. That would be quite contrary, you see, to the Washington and Lee philosophy of teaching, and that was done only because ofDr. Flournoy, who was such a prized member of the faculty and sort of got away with things others might not have got away with. He would not grade, so the story was-this is the story we as students thought to be true. I have no reason to think it wasn't true. He would not grade sophomore survey English papers. The survey course that was then taught to sophomores was a required course, and he opposed the teaching of a survey course in anything. He felt that to be impossible to do. He opposed requiring anything. So for two reason he didn't think that course offering was good. but he had to teach it because there weren't enough professors of English for him not to. Every student in the student body was going to take it, so he had to teach it, but he wouldn't grade the papers. So the department hired a senior English major each year to grade the sophomore papers for Dr. Flournoy, and because Dr. Flournoy had them graded for him, then they were graded for other members of the department in the sophomore English course, too. That was my job one year. My senior year, I was the grader. I graded the sophomore English papers. Presumably he would look them over before he awarded the grade. I don't know if he did or not. I'd be in his office-I'd use his office as a place. He rarely used it in the evening. I had a place where I would sit, it was quiet, to grade papers. And every two weeks there was a test given in the English survey course, and I had to grade the tests. There were themes. Every other week there was a theme or something to be written. I had to read those. He'd occasionally he'd come in the office when I was sitting there grading, and he'd look at me, clasp his hand to his heart like this, ""Oh, yes, Mister...Mister... Don't tell me. Mister...Mister." Finally he might get "Huntley" out. When I came back to teach, he welcomed me, but he still couldn't remember my name. [Laughter] He was a wonderful teacher. Those are among the teachers that I remember. And of course, the dean of the students was Frank Gilliam, whom you must have heard a 10 lot about. Warren: Not really. I'd love for you to talk about him. Huntley: Well, he's one of the great characters in this school's history, I would think. I think that's the reason why you need to talk to more alumni than you've shown me in your list, because the majority of the alumni of that period would remember Gilliam as one of the most important features in their lives. He knew all the students, literally knew all the students. He learned every student's name before they enrolled, by hard study, before he'd ever met them, by reference to their pictures and their names. He used to study their names and pictures so that every student, when he entered Washington and Lee, was already known by name by the Dean of Students. And from then on out, he knew all the students in the student body by name and called them all by name when he greeted them, and continued to know them by name for the rest ofhis life and the rest of their lives. So he knew by name literally every alumnus who had been to Washington and Lee over a period of twenty-some years, every one. He not only knew their names, but he knew about them, what their backgrounds were and what their needs were like and he knew what their weaknesses were and where you could help them. He was available as a wise resource to any student in the student body at any time. Not all students took advantage of that, but a lot did. I was talking with a friend who was staying with me over the weekend, Merrill Plaisted from Richmond, who was a student here just after I was. His recollection of Gilliam-Plaisted came here from Maine, from a small town in Maine, had never been here before, was a stranger to the area, and, of course, no one else in the student body came from his small town in Maine, if indeed, from Maine at all. His recollection of Gilliam was his ability to make his years here good ones. Very touching. So Gilliam was a wonderful dean of students. He could be stem when need be, but the main feature of his personality was one of standing by to be helpful. He was still dean of students when Leybum came as dean of the university. Those were Dr. Gaines' latter years, and Dr. Gaines was not as active in his later years as he had been earlier. He'd been present for twenty-five years, twenty-some years, and by the time Dr. Leybum came, Dr. Gaines had already been president for twenty years, I guess. So, much of the administration of the University occurred between Frank Gilliam and Jim Leybum and, to a lesser degree, but to a significant degree, nonetheless, the then treasurer, 11 whose name was Earl Mattingly, whom you must have heard something about by now. Warren: rve read, but I haven't heard. Huntley: Mattingly was the treasurer and kept a firm grip on the school's limited finances, and they were quite limited. He parceled out the pennies carefully over all those years. The three of them were sort of a triumvirate in the years between Leyburn's arriving and Fred Cole becoming president in 1960. Warren: Were you involved in sports? Huntley: I was on the crew, which we no longer have, in my junior and seniors years as was, incidentally, Roger Mudd. He rode the sixth position, I rode the fourth position on the varsity crew. We rowed on the James River, a course which no longer exists because VEPCO, the power company, for whatever reason, decided to get rid ofthe dam that made it possible to row on the James in those days. You couldn't row on the James anymore and you couldn't use it as a course. That probably explains the fact that the sport is gone. But I had a marvelous time on the crew. We did fairly well. A lot of fun with it. We had a coach named Anderson, whom Mudd called the Mad Swede. You just ask Mudd about the crew team, he' 11 have marvelous stories for you on that. Warren: Great. Okay, I will. So how did an English major decide to go to law school? Huntley: That's not an unusual combination. I think the Law School, certainly when I was a law teacher, always felt that undergraduate majors in the humanities were the ones we preferred to get. So that was not an unusual combination in law school following an English major or history major. How did I decide to go? I don't know. I was out for four years between undergraduate and law school. Warren: And what did you do in that time? Huntley: If you recall, there was a war going on then. While that seems to have been forgotten by most folks of your age, the draft in 1950 was every bit as comprehensive as the draft had been in 1941 . Everybody, unlike the Vietnamese draft, which was selective and, I think, flawed for that reason. The Korean draft was analogous to the World War II draft and every warm body, every warm male body, had to go into something. Again, we've seemed to have forgotten now, but it was then thought that we were at threat of major world war. It happily turned out not to have been the case. So all of us had to go into something. 12 I joined the navy a couple of months after leaving Washington and Lee, just short of being drafted into the army, and spent a bit more than three years in the navy and then came back to Washington and Lee the following fall, the fall of '54. Warren: So you came back to old Tucker Hall. Huntley: Oh, sure, yeah, of course. Warren: Tell me about old Tucker Hall. Huntley: Well, it's right there now, as you know. Warren: But it's a very different building then it was then. Huntley: Yeah, it's a different building. It was a lovely building. Warren: In fact, I saw some pictures yesterday, I'd never seen the interior before yesterday. I'd love it if you would describe what it was like. Huntley: It was a lovely building. The central core was a large library, reading library. Of course, it would be small by comparison to the present law facility or law library, but it was okay by the standards ofthat time, and then a lovely, comfortable and welcoming building to be in. As you know, the old building burned in the thirties. Have you ever seen pictures of that building? Warren: You can tell me about it. Huntley: I don't remember it. It was before my time. It's about the only thing you can think of that's before my time. I don't remember it, but it was as ugly as a mud fence. In fact, it looked somewhat like a mud fence, or lime fence. It was a large limestone building, quite incongruous with the rest ofthe campus. It burned in the--I've forgotten the date now, late thirties, and was replaced with Tucker Hall, named after John Randolph Tucker. But it was a marvelous building, had big, very comfortable classrooms for teaching. The classrooms in the present law school are modeled after it. They are more modern in appearance, but their configuration and appearance is similar to the ones in the old Tucker Hall. Warren: I didn't know that. Huntley: My first office was in a corner of the basement of Tucker Hall. In fact, that's the office I had, I guess, until I became dean. I may have had one year in one of the main floor offices before that, perhaps. I believe I did. I was in an office in the basement and next to me, shortly after I came--! came back when Clayton Williams was dean, as I mentioned. Dean Williams retired as dean when he reached the age of, I don't know, sixty-five or seventy, and 13 was succeeded by Charlie Light, who was one of my favorite people, and another person it's a shame you can't talk to now. He was here for many, many years. He was a law professor and dean. He was twice dean, in fact. He was dean after Clayton Williams, and then I became dean in 1967, late in '67, I was made president early in '68. So my daughter says I was dean for a day. I succeeded Light, then when I became president at the beginning of 1968, the beginning of the second semester of 1968, late January of 1968, Charlie Light had to step back in as dean during the time we searched for the dean who became dean, Roy Steinheimer. Charlie used to say he was the only man he knew who succeeded his own successor. [Laughter] He was a wonderful person, one of my closest-good teacher, great classroom performer. Warren: Tell me about him. Huntley: Well he would pace the platform. The platforms in Tucker Hall, the teaching podium was a long platform which was raised about a foot above. Most of the ones in Lewis Hall are that way. A long desk that the teacher sat behind. I mean, six feet long. Charlie Light would pace back and forth on that platform. I recall on one occasion he paced so hard, he fell off the platform. He'd get so carried away with his comments and his lecture. He taught torts, which is a basic freshman course, and constitutional law, were his primary specialties. He was a wonderful teacher. All the law professors were. Clayton Williams was a wonderful teacher. Old Charlie McDowell, I say old II II to distinguish him from his son, who is about my age, I guess that makes us old, was sort of the third person in that trinity over there at the law school in those days. Charles Laughlin came in a little later and was a welcome addition to that group. They were a wonderful four men. Then they found a young man named Bill Ritz, who turned out to be a wonderful teacher. And others, there were others, but those were the ones that stand out. All those men taught me and all those men then were there when I came back to teach, and all those men were still there when I became dean, which is sort of an unusual relationship. That was true, of course, with Bill Pusey, for example. Bill Pusey taught me and then I came back and taught here while he was the head of the Department of German and then he became dean under Fred Cole and remained as dean at my request for several years after I became president. I was never able to call him anything but Dean Pusey until I had been president for several years, and he finally one day said, "Bob, we've got to stop this. I call you Bob and you call me Dean Pusey. We've got to get passed that." [Laughter] So I finally did. 14 I But I was never able to call Clayton Williams anything but Dean Williams, or Dr. Leyburn anything but Dr. Leybum; I was never able to bring myself to do that. Warren: I need to turn the tape over.