Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 11, 1995 TAG: 9506120082
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RICHARD FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: MONETA LENGTH: Long
You'd think Glenn Ayers could use a rest.
After all, the 59-year-old high school teacher known as "The Professor" has done more than just teach English, literature and history during his 33 years at Staunton River High School. He's also coached track and drama, announced football games, written a nationally televised play, sponsored student government groups and twice been selected for a prestigious national scholar award from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
During his spare time, he's written for legal reviews and has written long commentaries about D-Day and other historical issues for the Roanoke Times & World-News. He's a former member of the Central Virginia Planning District Commission and the Bedford County Planning Commission, and he headed a community group that successfully opposed a regional airport.
He's acted in local theater on and off for the last 20 years. He's a country and folk singer who performs Appalachian yodeling and does a mean Hank Williams Sr. impersonation at local pubs. He still receives royalties from BMI - where's he's listed as a registered songwriter - for "Blue-Eyed Mountain Girl," a minor hit that was performed by the now-defunct Blue Grass Express.
And he's managed dairy and cattle operations and finances at the Ayers family's Rockcastle Farms in Bedford County. (Whew!)
So when he unexpectedly announced that he was retiring from teaching this year, nobody could've faulted him for putting up his feet for a spell.
Nobody, that is, except Ayers himself. He says he hasn't got time to rest. He and Blu, his wife of 37 years, are moving to Burlington, N.C., to live in a house she inherited from her parents. Once there, he'll seek a job with the local newspaper.
And, typically, he's going to be doing a few other things on the side. He founded the nonprofit Rockcastle Institute last year and, with grants and donations, he plans to spend his spare time writing and researching community histories.
The institute's first project will be creating an annotated text of 30 years of Pittsburgh history as told in the diaries of his uncle, a bank clerk.
"I'm not sure how well I would have adjusted to leaving Staunton River if I was truly retiring, if I had to get up every morning and ask myself if I was going to hunt, fish or work in the garden," Ayers said. "I would have read about the Golden Eagles' games in the paper and wondered if whoever's announcing is as good as I was."
Instead, he said, "I'm embarking on a new life. I won't have time to miss it."
The same can't be said of him at Staunton River.
"For 33 years, he's set a tone of academic excellence at Staunton RIver High School," said the school's principal, Robert Ashwell. "Literally thousands of kids in the south side of Bedford County have benefited from Glenn Ayers' sensibilities and wisdom. He's a very creative person. A really unusual duck.
"You don't replace a person like that."
Like several teachers in Bedford County schools, Tom Karnes is a former student of Ayers'. Now he and Ayers team-teach the school's American Studies program - a blend of history and literature.
"I'm not real keen on his retiring," Karnes said. "The school is losing an irreplaceable resource. He was a wonderful teacher when I had him as a junior in American literature. I wanted my daughter to experience his class but she's three years away. It's hard to talk about."
"He's going to be missed so much. We've enjoyed him so much," said Damon Arrington, an 18-year-old graduating senior. "It seems like he knows everything in the world. If you have a problem, you always know you can go to him."
Arrington played the county sheriff last year in a nationally televised play Ayers wrote about the day Bedford County found out about its heavy casualties from D-Day. In the fall, Arrington's going to attend Virginia Commonwealth University, where he'll major in theater.
"He really inspired me to go further with this career," said Arrington, who hopes one day to teach drama at a university.
Even former students aren't immune to Ayers' considerable influence.
Karnes received a national scholar's award this year from the National Endowment for the Humanities. As one of 12 people chosen from a pool of more than 1,200, he'll spend six weeks at the University of Virginia this summer studying history.
"The only reason why I'm there is that Glenn Ayers challenged me to grow as a scholar," Karnes said. "He always tells me and the students: 'If you're a true scholar, you'll never cease to learn.'"
Outside the classroom, Ayers is as likely to strike up a conversation about Emerson and Thoreau as he is to talk about bee-farming. Karnes started buying The Wall Street Journal a few years back just to keep up.
At Ayers' urging, Karnes spent one recent summer studying at a teachers' institute at the American Frontier Museum in Staunton, where he learned about the migration patterns of black Americans.
"When you see him constantly reading and challenging himself, it doesn't allow you to sit on whatever laurels you have," Karnes.
Ayers, who earned a law degree but never practiced because he preferred teaching, said of his chosen profession, "I love literature, and here was a chance to spend my life reading, writing, and studying and get paid for it.
"You can't be a scholar unless you're a teacher. It makes very little sense to learn something unless you can test it out on someone."
And that's one of his strongest suits. Though it seems unlikely from his trademark bow tie and bald pate, Ayers easily bridges the generation gap between him and his long-haired, grunge-outfitted students.
In class, he's a bit eccentric, known to burst into song or tell a joke about the local drunk. His former students include soon-to-be Bedford County General District Judge Jim Updike and county Board of Supervisors Chairman Dale Wheeler. And sometimes unfortunately for his past charges, Ayers remembers them all well.
"Dale was a decent student," Ayers recalled. "But he was a real mischief maker." As for Updike, who was a drama student, Ayers said, "He was an awfully good actor. This flamboyance he has is a learned skill."
Ayers also is no stranger to controversy. He led the opposition to a regional airport proposed to be built in the Moneta area and he incensed Civil War re-enactment buffs when he criticized the practice in a scathing newspaper editorial.
"We tried in our American studies course to bring out what war does," Ayers said, still unapologetic. "War can be a solution but it's also a horrible thing. It's not something to celebrate. It just irks me."
And during his two terms as a county planning commissioner, he helped write the county's comprehensive plan, name its streets and draft the county's Land Use Guidance System. "God knows that was a lot to do," he said. "Not just the work, but putting up with the political flak."
But of his many accomplishments, Ayers takes none more seriously than the difference he has made in his students' lives.
"He's always proud of their successes," said Ashwell, the principal. "But the ones who are not so successful really bother him. He'd always ask, 'What could we have done differently?'''
And now, as Ayers bids farewell to all those whose lives he's touched, he looks forward to his own life starting over.
In his letter of resignation, Ayers quoted the 16th century French writer Francois Rabelais, saying, "I go to seek a great perhaps."
by CNB