Math majors who became pioneers reunite

Some 50 years ago, they were mathematics majors at the college, still working with slide rules and doing their lessons with paper and pencil. But word was spreading that something new — computers — was emerging that, as we all know now, would impact the lives of millions worldwide.

Officially called the Chadron State Math Club Reunion, it drew 15 CSC graduates who renewed acquaintances with their math professor, Dr. Gene Hughes, and reflected on the vast technology changes they have experienced.

“The main reason we got together was to thank Dr. Hughes for what he did for all of us,” said Stan Hoffman of Berthoud, Colo., one of the organizers of the reunion. “He was our leader and our guiding light. We all owe a lot to him and are proud that we were taught by him.”

“But it was also fun to talk about all the changes we have seen,” Hoffman said. “We were beginning to hear about computers, but we never dreamed of all the things that would follow. Things like the Internet, e-mail, cell phones, iPads and smart phones.”

Hughes was equally pleased to see his former students.

“This (reunion) has been a highlight of my career,” Hughes told the alums and their spouses during a luncheon Thursday that wrapped up the two days of exchanging memories and sharing information. “Your success reflects so well on Chadron State and it means so much to me. I have been thrilled to hear your stories and learn more about your success. I am proud of all of you.”

Hughes enrolled at Chadron State in the fall of 1954 after spending two years at Scottsbluff Junior College in his hometown. He recalled that he was offered a job to teach all the math courses, coach all three of the athletic teams and drive a school bus at Edgemont, S.D., when he graduated magna cum laude from CSC in 1956, but he decided to work on a master’s degree at Kansas State University instead.

During his second year at K-State, he received a call from Frank Marquis, who had been his math professor at Chadron State. The college’s enrollment was growing and he had been given permission to hire another math instructor. Would Hughes be interested?

Even though the offer meant Hughes had to return to Manhattan the following summer to complete his degree, Hughes accepted it and began teaching at CSC. Shortly afterward, Marquis resigned at Chadron State to take another job and Hughes became chairman of the Math Department.

After teaching at CSC for five years, Hughes was gone for three years while he earned his doctorate in math from George Peabody College at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn.

Hughes’ popularity as a math professor helped the department grow rapidly. Before long, Chadron State had more math majors than all the other three state colleges in Nebraska combined and nearly as many, if not more, than the University of Nebraska.

Hughes taught math a few more years at CSC before becoming director of institutional research and then dean of administration. Finally in 1970, he was lured away to Northern Arizona University, where he served as a dean, provost and academic vice president for nine years before being selected as the president. He had that position 14 years and then was president of Wichita State University for six years. A major building on each campus is named in his honor.

But Hughes has never forgotten the success that his students at Chadron State achieved in their own careers. When he returned to CSC in 2003 to accept an honorary doctorate and to deliver the college’s commencement address, he called his alma mater “a college of opportunity” and used the careers of many of his former math students to illustrate his point.

While teaching at CSC, Hughes became aware of the dawning of the computer age, but he recalls that there were no textbooks on the topic

“We ‘invented’ courses so we could study what was happening as much as possible,” Hughes said. “They were ‘special studies’ courses that we used to learn as much as we could. I taught them all I knew, but I didn’t know a lot. We had the library order materials from wherever they were available.”

Several of the alums said those courses and the strong math background they received served them well when they became employed.

One of the first to become heavily involved in computers was Rick Rickenbach, who went to work for Control Data soon after he graduated in 1962. At that time, Control Data, headquartered in Minneapolis, had 2,000 employees. It eventually became known for developing the fastest computers in the world and employed 65,000. Rickenbach became a vice president and was the general manager from 1982 until 1990, when he took over as chairman and CEO of Government Technology Services in Washington, D.C.

A year after Rickenbach joined Control Data, he lured Hoffman, who had been a classmate at CSC and was teaching math at Torrington, to join the firm. Hoffman initially taught other Control Data employees about the emerging technology, and then was promoted seven times in the next three decades. He became the Rocky Mountain District sales manager. One of his crowning achievements was selling a supercomputer that Control Data had developed to the Mormon Church for its genealogy programs for about $5 million.

“In the early years, the computers were so large we said it took an airplane hangar to store them, all the electricity generated by the Grand Coulee Dam to power them and temperatures of Alaska in the winter to cool them,” Hoffman said. “Now you can hold an iPad in your hand that can do nearly as much. It’s amazing.”

Hughes noted that three Dawes County natives are among t those who excelled in highly specialized technical fields. They are Marlene Cockle McKee of Chadron, who became one of the first computer programmers at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory; Rod Reed of Chadron, who became a senior scientist for the Lockheed Missiles and Space Co. and was among the scientists chosen for the first United States/Soviet Union scientific exchange; and Jerry Mahlman of Crawford, who was recognized as one of the world’s leading authorities on climate change while he was director of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Princeton, N.J.

Chadron State was founded 100 years ago as a teachers college, and it is only natural that many of Hughes’ math students went into education.    

Dr. Frank Ferguson of Hot Springs, S.D., recalled that when he enrolled at CSC he had another major in mind. However, after taking a class from Hughes, he switched to math. After graduating from CSC, Ferguson spent 42 years as a math teacher and college administrator, 34 of them at his alma mater, including a stint as chairman of the Division of Science and Mathematics.

Several others said they took all the math classes Hughes taught and then tried to adopt his style and technique during their own teaching careers. Among them were Richard Stratton, who taught math for 42 years in Colorado Springs schools; Dick Grimes, who taught in Department of Defense schools in Germany for 43 years; Joe Pomajzl, who taught math for 14 years before being the principal at Cody High School in Wyoming for 20 years; and Udell Hughes, who is Gene Hughes’ cousin and was the first director of the Educational Service Unit in Scottsbluff.

“When I was a junior, he (Hughes) asked me what I planned to do after I graduated,” Grimes recalled. “I said I had no idea. He suggested that I go into teaching, and that’s what I did. It paid well, particularly when I was overseas, and I had a great career. He was the reason I was a math major in the first place.”

Judy Dunbar Hiles of Hay Springs, who taught math several years before raising a family, recalled that she was the only girl in a calculus class with 41 students while she attended CSC in the 1960s.

“I loved every minute that I taught and tried my best to emulate how Dr. Hughes taught,” Hiles said.

Others at the reunion who became teachers included Bill "Buzz" Delinger, who is beginning his 39^th year as a physics professor at Northern Arizona University, and Gilbert "Gib" Wilson, who taught math for more than 33 years, most of it at Central Wyoming College in Riverton.

Cal Clark of St. Paul, Minn., and Clayton Johnson of Mitchell, said they used their math training frequently when they became bankers and then went into other business ventures; Bill Talbert of Wylie, Texas, taught math and physics for 17 years before going into real estate development and sales; and Marilynn Eckerle Huck of Bayard, who taught math four years and raised her two daughters before working in the finance department and as payroll manager at Regional West Medical Center in Scottsbluff for 23 years.

Lt. Col. Ken Maika of Chadron said the math he learned in Hughes’ classes served him well when he became an Air Force navigator.

Another Chadron resident, Roger Dotson, said after not faring especially well in the math courses he took at CSC, he went to barber school and practiced that occupation for more than 40 years. About once a month until Hughes moved to Arizona, Dotson gave his former professor a flattop.

Dotson produced some chuckles during the reunion when he related that another customer was Dr. F. Clark Elkins, the president of Chadron State for 5.5 years in the 1960s. One day when Elkins was receiving a trim, he told Dotson that the college was moving Hughes from the classroom to administration.

“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard you say,” Dotson said he blurted out to Elkins. “Why in the world would you make an administrator out of your best teacher? Anybody can be an administrator.”

As the reunion drew to a close, the participants heard that a half century later math is still a popular subject at Chadron State. Dr. Rob Stack, the current chairman of the Math Department, said that in the fall of 2004 under the leadership of Dr. Charles Bare and the late Dr. Monty Fickel, CSC was the first college or university in the nation to have its entire math curriculum online.

Stack added that this fall CSC has more than 70 undergraduates majoring in math and has nearly 50 graduate students taking math courses.