About two years ago, Megan bought me a madras jacket, the one above. She had no idea why I wanted one, just that I had said several times I would like one. So finding one on ebay, she ordered it and gave it to me as a present for some occasion. The real reason that I wanted one was because Dr. Larry McGehee always wore them at Wofford.
Second semester my junior year, if I recall correctly, I signed up for five classes. This was a break from the norm for me, a slack student who always signed up for the bare minimum. It’s still any wonder how I ever got out of school on time. But this particular semester, I had decided to reach out and to extend myself a bit, taking fifteen hours, rather than twelve. I received an invitation from a fairly odd faculty member named Dr. Larry McGehee, asking me to take his Religion 340 course, Religion in America. Being a religion major, he felt like I fit the mold, whatever that was, to take his seminar style class. I walked in for the first class, meeting in the Presidential suite in Gibbs Stadium to find a class mostly dominated by seniors. I was extremely intimidated. Finding my seat, I immediately realized I was in over my head. I was taking a second semester of Greek as well as several other classes that were challenging at the time. So my only option, or so I thought, was to politely drop out. I can remember that feeling, when I told Dr. McGehee that I was going to drop his class. I knew it was a privilege to be invited to take the class, but I just didn’t believe that I was up for it. He was sad, you could tell. I felt terrible, like I had let him down, like I had disappointed him. You know that feeling like when you let your parents down by making a bad decision.
As the semester passed, and fall of my senior year came and went, a week did not pass in which I did not have some interaction with Dr. McGehee. It was as if he was stalking me for not sticking with it, not in the bad kind of way, but in the supportive, ‘I’m here for you’ kind of way. I will never forget the surprise I felt that when I started to sign up for my final semester at Wofford, when he approached me about yet again participating in his seminar class. Now that I knew him, there was no way I was passing up another opportunity.
That was so like Dr. McGehee. He believed in his students, way more than we ever believed in ourselves. He constantly sought us out, wanted our opinions, desired to learn from us, rather than just sitting back and teaching us all he knew, which was the world. He could have spent hours upon days upon weeks and years, sharing his knowledge, he had that much, but instead he invested his time and energy, learning with us, experiencing life with us. Never was a man his age more proficient in the ways of technology, leaving his students trying to catch up with him. He was always quick with a small and something funny to say, lightening the mood whenever he could. The only thing he loved more than learning was his family and the Wofford community, which most of the time, you couldn’t tell the two apart, except for ‘the Queen Mother’, his wonderful wife Betsy, who knew us probably just as much as Larry did because I’m sure he shared everything with her.
Dr. McGehee was first and foremost a word-smith, a vocabulary genius or any other way you could describe someone who has complete mastery of language. Here’s an example. These words were the last I, along with many others, received from Dr. McGehee. They came via an email thank you following this year's Homecoming. “When I arrived at Wofford in 1982 and for every day since, Wofford College has laid her hands upon me, levitating, elevating, and otherwise ever uplifting me. She embraced me so tightly that I went without vacations, holidays, and Saturdays and Sundays, for a quarter century. I was unaware of how dependent, Antaeus-like, upon being on campus I had become, until late April of this year, when some virus complicated my existing fibrosis condition and laid me low. I have been unable to return to campus since then, and have given up my office. The daily lunches with colleagues in the faculty dining room, lunch once or twice a week with students, Acorn café coffee visits, and post office runs are missed sorely, making me ever more mindful of the Wofford magic kingdom that inspired me and sustained me. I am thankful for Wofford College.”
No, it is we, who are thankful of you, Dr. McGehee. I didn’t know Dr. McGehee nearly as well as some of my peers, for they were much better students of the master than I was. But I did learn from him that it didn’t matter what kind of student I was because he loved us all. Dr. McGehee passed away last night from his recent illnesses. I, along with all the others that he touched over the years, will miss him greatly. I, for one, will think of him every time I slip my jacket on, you can count on that.
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