Alumni Memories

Don Muhm

Agricultural journalism, B.S., 1952

A Tale of Two Deans

Floyd Andre:
He told me privately one day about the time he was walking to lunch at Memorial Union with a foreign visitor who spoke a little English. As they left Curtiss Hall the bells of the Campanile began to peel forth so the Dean commented, “Aren’t the bells beautiful?”

“What?” the visitor replied. So the Dean repeated himself and said again. “Aren’t the bells beautiful?”

This time the visitor said quickly, “I can’t hear you for those damned bells.”

H.H. Kildee:
It was always good to bump into Dean Kildee on campus, at the State Fair, the Chicago Stock Show or whatever, I told a good friend. I explained that was because the old dean always had a good parting personal comment.

It was always something like this: “You do such a good job for agriculture.” I mean, wow! To hear something like that from such a legendary figure really had impact. That is, until my friend told me it was standard talk by the old Dean.

He says something like that to almost everyone he meets, my friend said. I can’t say it didn’t hurt, because, by golly, it did. For about two minutes.

Then I got to thinking about the whole deal, and I felt better. I though of all the people the Dean must have encouraged over the years, including me.

Then I thought, this episode says more about the Dean that it does anything else. Good Samaritans for years have gone forth promoting good deeds. So while it hurt to realize perhaps I wasn’t really that special, I still had a good feeling every time we met. That’s because I’d stop and wonder about all the people the old Dean likely saw that day. And I must admit I’ve done a little bit of that kind of thing myself ever since.