Over the course of these e-pistles (that's an epistle or letter done on a computer. Yeah. Made it up. Pretty clever. Feel free to use it. I can imagine the Apostle Paul using his PC to stay in touch with Corinth, for example. He'd have the best IT department around. I wonder how many sentences I would have to write in order to win the award for longest, most incoherent parenthetical comment?) I have made passing reference to teaching at Johnson County Community College or JCCC. Understandably, that is troubling to anyone concerned with the future of education in our country. When President Bush heard I was teaching, he instituted a new program called "No Fake Professors Left Behind."

Back in the early 90s...1990s, smart alecks... a JCCC instructor was visiting the KMBC newsroom and asked our news director if he had any suggestions of someone who could teach an evening course called Introduction to Broadcasting. My boss, mishearing the question as "Is there someone here who should take a course called Introduction to Broadcasting?" immediately suggested me. I was already handing out syllabi...syllabuses...those pages with the course information on them...when the error was discovered.

The first semester I taught, I imagined myself as John Houseman in The Paper Chase. I was going to take those "skulls full of mush" and create great lawyers...I mean broadcasters. The students didn't respect me very much. Perhaps, it was because I demanded a lot of them and was a very tough grader or, maybe, I shouldn't have worn a cap and gown, while carrying a diploma-like scroll, into every class period. This lack of professorial esteem may have also had something to do with spelling "broadcasting, " "broodcoasting" on the chalk-board the first day of class. Another factor was age. Back then, I was not that much older than most of the students. They looked at me as more of an annoying older brother than a teacher. Now, I am treated with much greater deference. I like to think it is due to my dignified demeanor, professional stature and obvious deep knowledge of the subject matter. More likely, the students see me as a frail, old man and pity me. At this stage of the game, I can accept that.

Because I teach in the evenings, I have, occasionally had students older than myself. Less often, lately. One of my first classes had a woman, old enough to be my grandmother, who had no interest in a career change to broodcoasting or broadcasting. She actually detested TV and radio and wanted to find out why such messes existed, at all. Once she came into class totally disgusted with a story she had seen on the news the night before. It was a ridiculous segment about Groundhog's Day. She went on and on about what a waste of valuable time the story was and how it did nothing to educate or enlighten! "The reporter was ignorant and, frankly, rather homely." Oh, she hated that story and felt it exemplified everything wrong with the media, today. You know the punch-line. It was a story I had done. Nothing she said really hurt my feelings. Well, the "homely" part seemed a little mean. I was big about it, though, and as it turned out, she got an "A" in the class, because she was a very good writer and did all the assignments well and on-time. (As I told the authorities at the time, I had no knowledge about the stuffed groundhog's head that ended up in the backseat of her car.)

Well, now, I teach Introduction to Broadcasting and Broadcast Performance. I rely heavily on guest-speakers, field-trips, hands-on projects, movies and class discussions...trying to keep my actual influence to a minimum, in keeping with the aforementioned "No Fake Professors Left Behind" act. I don't know if any of my former students have actually entered the broadcast field. I suspect you'd be able to pick out the ones who took the class, though. Just keep an eye out for any story having to do with groundhogs.