PAPER TRAILS: Professor's story still being told

Sean Clancy, Paper Trails columnist
Sean Clancy, Paper Trails columnist

In the spring of 1970, the average price of gas was 36 cents per gallon, the Baltimore Orioles were beginning a season that would end with them winning the World Series, Eric Segal's novel Love Story was a bestseller and the most popular movie was MAS*H.

It was also when a 25-year-old English professor named Terrell Tebbetts moved to Batesville to teach at Lyon College.

Half a century later, he's still there.

At first, he and wife, Diane, thought they would eventually leave for the East Coast, where they could indulge their passion for historic preservation. Instead, they stuck around.

"Before the decade was over, we helped form and were running the Batesville Preservation Association," Tebbetts said earlier this month. "The college kept growing, and it seemed like a place to stay after all."

He lived in England, Ark., until eighth grade when he moved with his family to Little Rock. Early on, his favorite subject was math. When he attended Little Rock Catholic High for Boys, though, he fell in love with literature.

"Father [George] Tribou and Father [John] O'Donnell were wonderful English teachers. Their classes were always the most interesting. I'd always wanted to teach because I loved school ... I thought, I'll be an English teacher and make my classes as interesting as theirs."

He attended Hendrix College in Conway and interned as a reporter at the Arkansas Democrat and the Wall Street Journal. He went to graduate school at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.

Tebbetts wanted to teach at a church-related liberal arts college, and that's how he came to interview at Lyon in January 1970.

He has won his fair share of awards and honors, and has contributed more than 60 articles to scholarly journals like the F. Scott Fitzgerald Review, the Steinbeck Review and others.

He also writes poetry, is an avid reader (Tea Obreht's novel Inland is a current fave) and edits the Philological Review. In December, more than 100 former students and friends attended a reception for him in Little Rock.

When asked if students have changed over the past 50 years, Tebbetts says, with a laugh: "No, they haven't changed much. What has changed is that they walk around campus staring at their phones."

He and Diane have two sons and a daughter, and are still active in preserving Batesville's historic buildings.

And he's not retiring anytime soon, which isn't surprising. During our interview, Tebbetts is infectiously upbeat and energetic. He sounds like a guy who is still having fun going to work every day.

"You've got to love what you do," he says. "And you love what you do when you get feedback from students telling you that you have made a difference."

email: sclancy@adgnewsroom.com

SundayMonday on 02/23/2020

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