THURSDAY, JANUARY 11, 2024 - IT WAS A VERY GOOD YEAR

 THURSDAY, JANUARY 11, 2024, IT WAS A VERY GOOD YEAR

This week I’ve been using Frank Sinatra’s “It Was a Very Good Year” as a way of reflecting.

On Monday, I wrote about “When I was Seventeen” - and was in high school.  (It wasn’t all that bad Lynette - I was the Drum Major for the Jefferson J-Hawk Band - and first tuba player in the Concert Band - out of 8 tubas.  I was in the concert choir, and in theater activities.).

On Tuesday, I wrote about “When I was twenty-one” and was in college.  I did well in college.

In Sinatra’s lyrics, the third verse was for thirty-five.

“Then I was thirty-five it was a very good year.

It was a very good year for blue-blooded girls.

Of independent means, we'd ride in limousines their chauffeurs would drive.

When I was thirty-five”

When I was thirty-five, I was hired as a computer instructor at a small college in South Dakota.  I had taught on the college level for four years - two years at Winona State (Minnesota) and two years at Mount Hood Community College in Gresham Oregon (suburb of Portland) My wife and I wanted to get back to the Midwest and our families (Minnesota for her, Iowa for me).

The college had been a teacher education institution (and with various names - General Beadle State College, Dakota Normal School.) 

But times were changing.  There was discussion at the State of South Dakota that there were too many public colleges (seven) and for a state with a smaller population base, maybe one could go.  (Yeah - politics).

I had an office in the basement of Heston Hall - the administrative building.  That was because the computer lab was just down the hall for teaching mainframe applications - Fortran, and COBOL.  We found a house a block from campus, Steve was in second grade and Becky in Kindergarten.  And I loved my work.  Good Midwestern students. Connie’s Grandmother was in Sioux Falls - about 45 miles away.  A great place.

BOOM - the Governor, State Legislature, and Board of Regents got it all together and on Leap Day in 1984 officially made Dakota State College into an Information Systems oriented college. Between the other computer instructor (MS), I was asked to be the acting dean for the new program.  

In other blogs and other memories over the years, I described how DSC became DSU and a super success.  The “sleepy” campus in Madison South Dakota now offers doctorate programs, and solid computing program - and I was there to lead the program.  WOW.  I grew up fast!!!

It any one position has defined me, this was it.  I got active nationally with DPMA (Data Processing Management Association) - (which became AITP - Association of Information Technology Professionals) and the EDSIG (Education Special Interest Group) and ISECON - Information Systems Education CONference. 

The University helped me to get a Ph.D. (Doctor of Philosophy) from the University of Nebraska in 1990.   

We (and it definitely was WE) put together a top-notch team.  Throw in a business education teacher (LM), a physical education teacher (TF) (and coach), and faculty who cared about students and worked well together - and BOOM -it was a success.  We even kicked in money for scholarships through an annual soup and bread lunch (JM).  I had an endowed scholarship to bring good students into Dakota State.  

Our own children graduated from South Dakota State University.  (I think they didn't want to be at the same college as their father). Steve in 1998 and Becky in 2000.  As we weathered Y2K (the handling of the date 2000 and more on computers, and with our children gone (Steve to Nebraska and Becky to Austin Texas), Connie insisted we move - s we found ourselves in Connecticut.  But that’s a different story.  

As for Frank Sinatra’s song, here in my version

When I was thirty-five, it was a very good year. 

It was a very good year for my career and family life.

We loved where we were.

And our children thrived.

When I was thirty-five.

LOVE WINS

LOVE TRANSFORMS

Karen Anne White, ©, January 11, 2024