Clark H. Kimberling

Looking back to high school days, I think about my buddies and all those pretty girls, but I also think a lot about our teachers. Especially Mr. McGown, who taught us about music and so much more which you won't find in any textbook, and Mrs. McGown, who taught us how to type - that turned out to be very important. And Mrs. McDonald who taught us how to express ourselves and Mrs. Schlesselman who did a mighty fine job of teaching trig.

There was, for me, a "defining moment" at SFA. It happened one day when I arrived early to a class and saw a classmate working on a math problem - it wasn't even a math class - but there he sat, someone my own age working hard on a math problem because he actually liked it. After that, I started to experiment with numbers and geometric patterns, and that's what I've been doing ever since.

From '61 to '64 I attended North Texas State. There, in the music building, I met a beautiful woman named Margaret Mitchell. We got married May 30, 1966 at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Denton; we had a very pleasant visit at St. B's just three years ago. Our twins, Amy and David, were born in '67, and Brian, in '72, after we'd lived in Louisiana, Missouri, and Chicago, where I finished a PhD in '70 at Illinois Institute of Technology. Since then I've taught and done research at the University of Evansville, in Indiana. Our children grew up here. Now they live in California, Oregon, and England. Margaret and I have four wonderful grandchildren, from two years old to fourteen: Josepha, Daniel, Anna, and Josh.

Once I went to a party and was introduced as a math teacher. The response was, "Oh, I'm sorry!" However, the truth is, I've enjoyed teaching math and have been fortunate to have some very good students. I've also been lucky as a mathematician, having had certain interests that fit well with new vistas opened up by computers. This resulted in a bunch of articles and books, and also websites called Encyclopedia of Triangle Centers, Unsolved Problems and Rewards, and New Harmony Scientists, Educators, Writers & Artists. (New Harmony is a historic Indiana town.) I've also written some music for church choirs published by G.I.A. in Chicago and some instrumental collections published by Mel Bay.

I mentioned meeting Margaret in the music building back at NTSU, before it became UNT. Margaret majored in organ, has been a church organist for 57 years, taught choral music in the Evansville schools for 20 years, is the co-director of the Evansville Children's Chorus and organist at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Evansville, where I sing bass in the choir.

In 1982, our family lived near Grantham, England, for several months, where I taught math and English at Harlaxton College, which is the British campus of the University of Evansville. The three kids were in three different schools - Dave attended the same high school that Isaac Newton did; Amy attended Maggie Thatcher's alma mater and sat a few feet in front of her during a visit; and Brian attended the Harlaxton Village Infant School. (He was 10 and didn't much like the name of the school - but that's what some elementary schools were called in England.) We loved our time over there and have returned several times. Margaret and I have also traveled to conferences of a mathematical organization called the Fibonacci Association, of which I am the vice-president. This included conferences in Scotland, Austria, Germany, Luxemburg, Greece, and Mexico.

I've enjoyed reading classmate profiles and viewing some terrific photos. If you google a few other high school reunion websites, you'll find ours to be way out in front. Thanks so much, Roberta, Linda, Beverly, Bill, John, and Vernon, for the marvelous SFA1961 website and reunion!

More - added on 9 Nov 2023:

Hi, classmates, thanks for the recent birthday greetings. One of my math colleagues noted that 7 Nov 2023 marks my year number 3^4. I'm still teaching math at the University of Evansville, with just enough extra time to pursue interests in a remarkable nearby historical town of New Harmony, Indiana. Early in 1826, some Philadelphia scientists moved there and set up a school and press, making the town a scientific center in the "western" frontier. The scientists (geologists and naturalists) soon realized they needed a copperplate engraver. His name was Cornelius Tiebout. He, with daughter and son, moved from Philadelphia to New Harmony late in 1826. He died there in 1832, and his family moved to Texas--and, it's just a coincidence--his son Henry died in Bryan in 1885.

As the art of copperplate engraving gave way to less costly ways to print images, many of Tiebout's works got lost, although if you Google his name you'll get lots of hits for his best known engravings. Margaret's nephew in Texas helped me start a website about Tiebout and his works. I hope you'll take a look: https://www.cornelius-tiebout-engravings.org/ .

Yesterday, I posted some recent family pictures. Thanks so much to Linda Godwin and others for making the Class of '61 site possible, especially pictures of so many families of classmates.

This past year the SFA site has been very meaningful to me because of memorials of two people I've greatly admired: Tommy Carll, for the thrills he provided from the football field (while some of us, holding instruments, cheered in the bleachers) and for his outstanding service in the U. S. Army. And Mr. Mac, our director and exemplar, who also served in the U. S. Army, before we knew him at SFA. (https://www.loc.gov/item/afc2001001.84533/?).

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