 This afternoon, it's wonderful to see so many members of the NCSSM community here today. This afternoon to honor the life and work of Dr. John Miller. Your presence provided a very visible and present representation of what a significant and lasting impact John made of his students, colleagues, friends over his life and his more than 40-year teaching career. I'd first like to thank all of the folks who helped plan and organize today's events. Kim Logan, Sophie Williams and our entire advancement team. Lindsay Morrison, John Woodmancy, Dot Doyle, Elizabeth Cross and Scott Lair. I'd also like to thank Scott and Dave Stuntz and Willie Painter for our music today. So thank you all so much for your time and helping organize this event. And I also want to take a minute to recognize members of John's family here this afternoon that are seated here in the front, his wife Pat, brother Tom and other members of their extended family. I'm so sorry for your loss. I want to particularly recognize Pat, who for me was what John was for so many of you. She was my inspiration as my teacher. She was my senior English teacher and also the reason I chose to become an educator. And later she was my mentor teacher when I did my student teaching. And so Pat, so she not only inspired me to want to teach, she helped prepare me to do so. So thank you. So this afternoon we'll have some of our alumni, colleagues and friends who will share their memories of John and the impact that he had on them. These remarks will be but a small window into the kind of impact John had on so many over his career. Since the announcement of John's passing there have been many wonderful and touching and heartfelt posts by alumni and colleagues and friends about the tremendous influence that he had on them. They have been amazing to read and in reading these you understand the magnitude of John's impact on people and the way that people feel about him and for my many conversations with him I know he returned that feeling to all of you. Thinking about remarks that I might make this morning about John's impact on NCSSM I thought back to a few years ago and the remarks John made at the beginning of our all year staff meeting. That year I had asked John, it was the school's 35th year I asked John to start our staff meeting here that first day back in this auditorium and ask him to provide some perspective on that 35 years. Since he was here the very first staff meeting ever held for the school I wanted him to share with us that we're here that day sort of a perspective on then and that in 2014-15. And so this morning I chose to read a little bit from John's remarks that day. I believe they're appropriate for helping articulate the special nature of NCSSM and just how special this place was to John. His remarks were in three sections and all together are too long to read here this morning so I chose to read from the first and third section. The first section was titled You Can Teach a Lot of Biology. We begin quote. Physically this place was a dump. The buildings for years had largely stood abandoned. Duke was sharing some of the not yet named Bryan facility with our small administrative staff which in 1979 had begun to move into its first floor and was smally encroaching onto the second. Bell, Reynolds and Watts were off limits and should have been. Paint was hanging off their walls and festoons and water was standing everywhere. Whitech, now royal, condemned even while the nursing school was still using it was given over to the boys to hasten its demise. Hill became a girls residence hall and its basement housed the history and English faculty and where the language lab is now Ross Baker taught biology. Right out her back door were the woods that covered the back half of our lot. That was her lap. The athletic facility was an outdoor swimming pool just outside the whole classroom windows. And late the Friday night before the students would arrive on Sunday the painters finished their work in the dorm and the faculty, residential staff and administration. It's been a hot muggy Saturday cleaning up those dorms and putting mattresses covers on mattresses. Neil Clark, my colleague in English and I alternating between the swing blade and the mower and cut the grass around the dorms which were a foot higher more and John Armadage who lived in Durham and was a member of that first class was frantically putting screens in the windows of the unaccredited dorms. Students arrived on Sunday, every one of them having left a better equipped, finer physical plant than they were coming to. Nonetheless, they stayed, they graduated and they went to college and they have remained remarkable supporters of their alma mater. And the dump began to become pretty flashy in places in the second year. As I was helping Ross move some of her equipment to the brand new biology lab in Bryan I remarked that she must be very pleased and excited to when she replied you can teach a lot of biology in the woods. A notion which reminds us that it is not the stuff that makes a great school. The second section was titled All Things Were Possible and I'm going to move now to the third section which was titled The Grand Thing Not The Grand Name. My fellow grass cutter Neil Clark often and memorably reminded us in our early discussions of curriculum, of personnel, policies and contracts, of what faculty should be called and how often tutorials should be held and when that we needed to be careful of the grand thing, grand name distinction. We are at our best when we focus on the grand thing and forget the grand name. If we do as the legislature legislated, if we are excellent, the name will come. And it came early in the first several years we were everywhere on the news and in the newspapers. One could hardly walk across campus without bumping into a New York Times reporter and one from LA or Washington. We were featured on the covers of major news magazines, Nobel Prize winners were on our board and the grand name idea for a laureate village on the back lot was briefly floated. Representatives from other states came, questioned and returned home to start schools much like ours are consciously different. I was once asked by a new faculty member if this was some kind of special school. More than and are now a special school, a model school. So as we begin this year, much has changed. We have new stuff, more stuff and better stuff. But the real NCSSM is as much as it was at the beginning. The people are much the same, a room full of us each with dreams and notions of excellence that we need to share. And by weeks in, we will have young people always the same on that first day. Recentering test scores are just about what they always were when we were just for test re-centering. They are bright, eager, proud and terrified to have been chosen. Willing to be challenged and ready to learn. But they will be different when they graduate because they are coming to a school with different boxes, large and small, in a different time. But they will be equally good and just as proud of their time here as that first class. I know that Ginger Wilson, John Williams, Clifton Gregg and I are proud of succeeding generations of what you have made of this school we came to long ago. So as John so eloquently articulated in 2014, his 35th August of preparing for school here in this facility, there is a timelessness to the NCSSM and how important it is for us to remember what has helped make this place special then and now. Although the things that people have changed over time, the principles that have guided NCSSM have and should stand the test of time. In his closing sentence that morning, John mentioned how proud he and other founding faculty and staff at the meeting were that day of what succeeding generations had made of this school. Proud he should be for it was he who helped lay the cornerstone of which we have all built over the past 38 years. So thank you all again for being here today to honor our colleague, teacher, family member and friend, Dr. John Miller. At this time I would like to invite John's close colleague and friend John Woodmancy to the podium. Thank you. Hello everyone. My name is John Woodmancy. And for those of you who don't know me, I had the good fortune being John Miller's colleague and neighbor on ground bell for 23 years. Many of you probably had a class with Dr. Miller. Raise your hand if you did. Wow, that's a lot of people. Yes, you are. So you all are perhaps ready for this. And the rest of you can play along. I thought we would all take a Miller test together. As you know, Dr. Miller's tests were famous and surviving them was the right of passage for science and math students. On each test he had a section for identifying passages from readings. Students had to name the author and title and most importantly to explain the significance of the passage which is its meaning in the context of ideas discussed in the course. So now I'm going to ask you to identify a passage from 19th century American literature and to ponder its significance. This is one Dr. Miller actually used on a test. So some of you may remember it. The passage is here. Just that one word sentence. Here. H-E, not H-E-A-R, but H-E-R-E exclamation. While you're thinking about that, I'm going to read from a letter I wrote John last May just before I left town for the summer and I wasn't sure I would see him again. Dear John, I don't believe I ever properly thanked you for being my friend and mentor these many years. Your guidance has given me the reassurance, resilience, and sense of humor I have needed to train unicorns for a quarter century. I can't remember if I told you this, but when I arrived on campus in 1992, I was afraid of you. Not because of anything you had done, rather your reputation loomed large and I was inexperienced and insecure. I did not meet you during my interview process and Jane Schlonsky and Lucy Hagen had told me stories about your booming boys commanding presence and high standards. I pictured John Hausman in the paper chest. To make matters worse, I was given a section of British literature, the course you taught, and the students had signed up expecting to have Dr. Miller as their teacher. I felt certain I was going to disappoint everyone, that is, until I met you. You could not have been more welcoming and kind, you shared ideas, gave me many books and treated me as an equal. Most importantly, you were always available to listen and never gave me unwanted advice. Because my office was across from yours, I got to take the longest running unofficial seminar ever offered at NCS. Miller's teacher training. Every day after school, students lined up to meet with you about homework, tests, papers, to talk about roommates living away from home, mom and dad, and whatever else they needed to express. Your patience and goodwill with students and colleagues taught me important lessons about teaching and friendship. Thank you for being genuine, for always being willing to discuss ideas and stories, for sharing funny moments. The tree never falls far from the tree. So let me pause here to explain that sentence. The tree never falls far from the tree is a line from a student's essay. Perhaps one of you, I'm not sure. John and I pondered that sentence for a year. I can't remember which student wrote it, which is good. And our first reaction was to assume that it was a misquotation of the adage, the apple never falls far from the tree, and to write in the margin apple question mark. Then, the more we thought about it, the more unsure we became. Perhaps it was actually profound. The kind of zen koan about human identity. The tree never falls far from the tree. A bit like Emerson's giant. My giant goes with me wherever I go. In any event, the line became a symbol for us about needing to keep an open mind and a sense of humor in order to survive as English teachers. Now back to the letter. John, thank you for being genuine, for always being willing to discuss ideas and stories, for sharing funny moments, the tree never falls far from the tree. For plastering your office with all the things students have given you, pictures, poems, street signs, and art. For reading the Grinch over and over and over again without becoming a Grinch yourself. For smiling even when you were tired and ready to go home. For respecting youth and age. For holding your ground in faculty meetings. For giving me rides to Mountain Service Center. For valuing lunch as a social occasion. For sending me curiosities from your current reading. You would do that a lot. I just get these emails, little sentences and paragraphs that he was reading. And thank you for a million other moments that add up to being a wonderful person and friend. Sincerely, John Woodman. So now we come back to our Miller test. The meaning of here. And I'm happy to inform you that you all passed with flying colors. You are here today. To honor Dr. Miller and to share in the community he helped create. The passage comes from James Fenimore Cooper's novel, The Prairie, and his Leather Stockings last word before going to the great beyond. As Leather Stocking is Cooper's hero of the American frontier, John Miller is our hero of the mind and the heart. He cared about community and our shared humanity. You all have demonstrated your commitment to those ideals by showing up today. Thank you all for being here. John Miller with people. And now I'd like to welcome Bob Williams. I met John Miller in the mid-1970s when both of us were teaching in what was then the Durham City Schools. By a quirk of fate, we were paired in a community schools program called Lunch with a Businessman. The idea was to put two teachers together with two businessmen over four plates of food and then let the magic flow from the interaction. I remember that John was a little skeptical about that. We met our counterparts at a downtown restaurant. The businessmen talked to each other. John and I talked. We ate lunch and then all of us went our separate ways. As far as I could tell, the only good that came out of the thing was that the businessmen picked up the check and I got to know John Miller. In those days, the city school system was a rough place to develop your craft. But John rose to the challenge and made his mark. What he learned there, he brought in polish form to science and math and here he found his niche. Here he became a fabled character. Like so many great teachers, John was something of an eccentric. And this was especially true outside the classroom where his quirky side had plenty of room to maneuver. A collector of the various and sundry, John had a particular nose for books. But to call him a mere book collector would be like calling Captain Ahab officially. Over the years, his accumulation, as he called it, spread steadily about his house, taking over room after room. John's lovely wife, Pat, endured it. But every now and then, the creeping stacks of musty volumes got to her. Once she said to him, John, the moths from your books are eating my sweaters. No, John told her, the moths from your sweaters are eating my books. Whatever the circumstances and wherever he went, John radiated a broad range of tastes and preferences that were not always easy to anticipate or to square with his image. He could see a Tennessee Williams play in the afternoon and enjoy a rerun of the Andy Griffiths show that night. He could find equal pleasure in reading Shakespeare's King Lear or Clarence Day's Life with Father, and he could exult in the dancing of Fred Astaire or that of Mr. Dynamite, James Brown. Likewise, when music was concerned, John had what could be called a global ear. He once made a CD for me that included Mississippi John Hurt, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Doug Gibson with Spanish guitars, and Joe Stafford singing songs of old Scott. And to fill the remaining space on the disc, he added Christmas Carols by Maurice Chevalier, Big Maybell, Elvis Presley, and Ernest Tug, perennial classics, he says. Gastronomically speaking, well, a number of you out there can bear witness that John did not discriminate when a meal was on the table. Indeed, regardless of whether he was dining at the finest restaurant in New York City or the worst school cafeteria in North Carolina, he always took pride in maintaining his membership in what he called the Clean Plate Club. All of this is to say that John held the world in a wide embrace. And so it was that he could find pleasure in anyone's company, regardless of their station in life, and anyone could find pleasure in his. John warmed the people quickly, and he had a knack for making everyone feel that he was their type, while remaining exactly who he was. Taken in full, John Miller was a wonderfully complex piece of work, a man of many facets and compelling interests, but above everything else, he was a gentleman. A throwback to great men of an earlier age who lived a quiet and dignified life, did their duty, served their fellow man, and asked no court. Robert Ingersoll, the great 19th century orator, once said, a great man does not seek applause or place. He seeks for truth, he seeks the road to happiness, and what he ascertains he gives to others. John Miller is difficult to catch in a phrase, but that one seems to fit. By nature and calling, John was one who gave to others. He was a teacher. And in the truest sense, all of us who enjoyed his company had been his willing students. Now I'd like to present Mr. Warren Baskett, another colleague of Mr. Miller's. Good afternoon to everyone. I'm out of my league here. Speaking is not my favorite thing to do. When Dr. Roberts asked me to speak on Dr. Miller's behalf, I paused for about five seconds, but I realized, as Dr. Miller always says, I had to rise to the greater challenge. So please forgive me if my remarks are not as polished as Mr. Whitman sees. I do my best. It's a Friday afternoon in Durham. As usual, the Ninth Street corridor is allied with activity, and the Peace of Palace to no exception. On this particular afternoon, even the Peace of Palace, though, is more busy than normal. It is full of staff and faculty from this strange little school with the big name, the one-on-club boulevard in Broad Street, that North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics. The palace's greatest boy name is a real plain building, very nonscriptical, functional, but comfortable. The tea is sweet, the peace of feeling, but neither is considered the best in Durham. The crowd inside is laughing and throwing back a few, not beers, but tea. They're having a grand old time. Three words brought them all here. Peace of Palace, anyone? A routine imitation from Dr. Miller every Friday afternoon, and the staff can't stop teaching to get out to come and share their time with Dr. Miller. It's his place. It's where he's comfortable, where he wants to meet, and greet, and have a good old time. On this particular day, the usual suspects are there, John Poe, John Whitmancy, Dr. Orr, Helen Compton, Joe Anlux, and Merle Link, making an appearance. And a special surprise today, Dr. Joanne Barber shows up. It's blended with the newest fashions, but she never eats. On rare occasions, even that mysterious guy, the head of residential life, Warren Basker, shows up. And on even rare occasions, the campus is resident recluse from Third Veil, Marlene Blake, who was sticker-hater for five minutes, and been an excuse and quickly leave. And today, with much fanfare, a strong West wind is blowing in jacket medals from places unknown. But again, this is Miller's place. Everybody comes because it's where he likes to be. It's plain but functional. This is where he's comfortable. I first met Dr. Miller in 1980. We were part of the original class, assigned with this big task, start this school that hadn't been started before, called the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics. It was my second day on the job. And we were introduced to the faculty, all these doctors and people with master's degrees, and I was a little intimidated. And this guy with the big, booming voice, and his firm handshake says, John Miller, pleased to meet you, Warren. And I replied in my little timid voice, nice to meet you, too, Dr. Miller. And he quickly responded, no, just John. And I met a lot of people with doctors, things like that. That becomes their first name. But he was a guy who was telling me just to call him John. I was so impressed that day, that from that point on to now, I could never call him anything but Dr. Miller. And I'm not a person who's easily impressed. I'm a pretty good judge of character. But that day, he made an immediate impression on me. Actually, I fell in love with him. As the line from Jerry McGuire says, you had me at hello, but you had me at just John. But he was different. He had something that I couldn't explain. The oldest string of the first hit of admission said, when you go out and recruit, you're going to find some students that as soon as you meet them, they have this something special that you immediately say, a science and math student. You don't have to read their files, check their grades. You know they belong here. She called it sparkle. Now, I don't think any of us in this room would ever describe Dr. Miller in the term sparkle. But he has something special. He's one of you here today. He probably had that same feeling when you met him the first time. He felt at ease. He felt like he was a part of your family. And he remained a part of your family forever. There were many occasions I walked across the campus and there he would be surrounded by students. Everywhere he went, he drew a crowd. People had to have the daily fix of Miller. Miller in his office, and sometimes his office was so crowded he would move his chair in the hallways just to accommodate everybody. Walking through Bryan's lobby, it didn't matter what time of the day or night, he would be there, students around him, talking about academics sometimes, sometimes just stuff. It didn't matter what the subject was, the reason they were here was to be with Dr. Miller. That's an amazing thing. Staff and faculty felt the same way. If someone mentioned Dr. Miller's coming, everybody found a way to be there. Call it charisma, call it sparkle. He had it, even before it was a real thing. But he did it without any fanfare, without boasting, he was just John. Never taking himself too seriously, never afraid to embarrass himself, even in public. For example, he was the emcee of the first faculty air ban, and he came out wearing the ugliest sports jacket I've ever seen. It was blue and pink and white, many, many sizes too small, sleeves rolled up, and he wore a pair of sunglasses and his famous khaki pants. And in the middle of one of the shows, he came out to introduce an exact, at least we thought he was, walked over to a table, picked up a glass of water. We thought he was going to have a drink. He threw it on his head. And where a big miller for us said, oh baby, I'm on fire, so much for the rest of the show, that was it. Before the Elba gym was erected, we played basketball at E.K. Poe Elementary School, in their gymnasium. Imagine that. There he was with myself, Branson Brown, John Poe, Kevin Barcoves. Running up and down are what used to be a regulation court, but now because it's elementary school, it was on a half court. Branson Brown shooting three pointers before three pointers were invented. And Dr. Miller throwing up his famous Miller hook shot from half court. Sometimes it went in, sometimes it didn't. It really didn't matter. We were all having fun. And that was part of his charm. Live, life, have fun. For 35 years, Dr. Miller created memories at this school. Some of them are now legendary. How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Every student who's ever heard that story, the first time he says who they owe, you know and you feel appreciated. Now those of you who have children, think about it. Teenagers giving up a Saturday night to come listen to a man read a poem about a Christmas story, how the Grinch Stole Christmas. If you can follow that and sell it, you have a great day to sit in tune. But John Miller had an effect on this campus. An effect that I don't think many of us can ever imagine. I don't think it will ever be duplicated. I'm certain that these 27 acres are organic and inorganic stuff. This campus of concrete and steel, brick and mortar, dirt and grass, it loved him just as much as he loved it. Actually, I think it was faith that put them both together. To separate them was impossible. When you say North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, I automatically think of John Miller. He was still a work and live on this campus. He's still here. So if you hear a few strange noises, get touched on his shoulder and look around, no one is there. See an extra shadow as you walk across the campus. It's just Dr. Miller. He's checking in, making sure things are okay. But Dr. Miller's life was very simple. Family and friends came first. Function mattered more than fashion. Substance more than style. He was my mentor. He was my colleague. He was the person I went to for advice. But most of all, he was my friend. He was one of the finest people I've ever known. And probably one of the finest people I may ever know. And I think all of you here today feel the same way. Now, it's Friday night and the restaurant's all closed. The piece of palace is no longer there. It's been replaced by more upscale building, serving more upscale food to more upscale crowds. But Dr. Miller's at another piece of palace. This one is always open. It's a place where the tea is always sweet. The piece is always heart and plentiful, where he's accompanied by good friends and family. He's been a place that every day is thriving. Thank you, Dr. Miller. Thank you for your memories. I am so not worthy to be up here. I promise you that. To talk about our beloved friend, Dr. John Miller. For 20 years, surrounded by the most brilliant colleagues, the most brilliant students, the most brilliant alumni, I served as the director of annual fund and alumni relations. John and I shared a profound love for the students and alumni. Here was John, the significant pedigree, academic pedigree. He could have commanded any position in any Ivy League, yet he chose to take a risk. For the unknown, the untested, Governor Hunt's experiment, in a broken down old hospital building with leaky pipes, and a number of preserved specimens, I heard that from Class of 82, that were in the basement. He, like those 1980 entering students and fellow founding faculty, was a revolutionary, a risk taker, a dreamer, a turning of discovery in the unknown. Relationships are deeply forged at NCSSM. I used to have a joke when I talked in this auditorium to the parents. Turn to each other, you may be meeting your in-laws. And I can tell you, John forged thousands and thousands of relationships. He touched so many lives, I was honored to witness many of those interactions. Over the decades, I've had a lot of time standing. 20 proms in the Science Museum, usually at the tornado simulator or launch pad pillar for photo ops. 19 graduations standing at the oak tree next to the faculty tent with bottled water for one or two occasional faintings. 11 years of the Grinch reading for alumni and their children. I recall when I asked him in 1999 if he would do it. Now why would any intelligent person want to take time on a Saturday in December for cookies and meat? Literally, hundreds of alumni and children have attended over the years. 20 reunions holding barbecue platters while hundreds of alumni lined up to talk with John. All are very special, but one in particular was the 1982-20th reunion. When we honored his dear friend, founding athletic director Branson Brown, naming the baseball field. Each one of us here knows how much John cared more for others' triumphs, never recognizing his own achievements. Best of all was John as our lunch captain. Emails sent, phone calls made, tallies done, late appearance noted to make sure you ordered the two-slice special for a late arrival. 4,465 lunches, or thereabout, with a lunch bunch, or as my dear friend, Dr. John Morrison calls it, the Malarian Midday Masticatory Mafia. These are my best memories of John and my lifelong friends. Our chats about the ordinary, college sports, worthy reads, discussions of the serious, politics, death, memories, lofts. Yet always each lunch filled with laughter, discussions on music, I should say, Miller music, hats of fun, Bill Monroe. Updates on alumni marriages and newborns, future alumni. Reminiscing on our departed lunch bunch members no longer at the table. Don Halt, Ray Church, Doug Gray, John Poe. Breaking bread together was a small act and it required very little of us, 45 minutes away from our usual mundane distractions. And yet, it was invariably one of the happiest parts of my day. Now mind you, these were far from a five-star Epicurean adventure. A bit greasy, one might say. We dined at Pomodoro's, El Corral, Hog Heaven, and Devines for their famous Billy Niner cheeseburger. John, our lunch captain, was consistent in all things. Just look at the 1982 yearbook, Button Down, Oxford, and Cackies. But it was consistency with purpose. If alumni ever visited, they knew the scheduled restaurant. Students in the prom knew where the photo op was. Reunion barbecues, he was always at the same oak tree. He was so consistent. At one reunion, an 86th alum shared that she had both Millers for English, which prompted me to ask about his beloved wife, Pat Miller, the other killer Miller, at Northern High School. So John, when did you meet Pat? Well, in the fourth grade. She was my neighbor. Wow, when did you start dating? Well, in the fourth grade. It seems that John genuinely shared every milestone of my life. Joyful, sorrowful, life-changing, exciting, stressful. But he's always genuinely interested in others. I imagine all his friends recognize this most beautiful treat. I got to thinking, every institution has a cornerstone. The architect selects the very best stone, alignment for the rest of the building, one where you have solid footing upon where the rest is built. John is our NCSSM cornerstone, what bound us all together. In the basement of Bell, in a windowless 8 foot by 8 foot office, filled with bookshelves overflowing with works by Keats, Marlowe, Milton and Shakespeare. Two walls of memorabilia of photos and drawings and articles set a beat-up orange vinyl chair for all to sit, knowing you had a friend who would listen. Thank you. In my window sill, all my thoughts of you came back again. Picture of my face reflected on the window pane. Is it tears or is it rain? Remember how we spoke? Today we said goodbye. What was beyond that door? Somebody laughed, said our lives were free like the birds that fly the wind. Now this rainy day made me think of you once more. A picture of my face. Is it tears? Is it rain? Set upon the window sill and I wonder, will you ever hear these words reflected on the window pane? He did not say aloud, oh thank goodness, though I'm sure he thought it. The counseling and everything's going to be fine. I went to counseling and things were in fact fine and in a couple days, he officially went back to John's office to apologize. He invited me to sit down and he asked me about home and my family and friends that I missed. He wisely did not ask me about physics or pre-cal and he even feigned shock when I told him that his class was one of my favorites. I told him how I liked to read and we talked about books, not class reading or classic literature, just for fun books. And for the first time at Science and Math, somebody really saw me and knew me and understood me. The real me. For the first time, Science and Math felt like home. I don't know if John realized it then, but he had officially doomed himself because after that, I dropped by often. Sometimes I would pop in and say, give me something to read and so he'd look around his office at shelves and pluck just the book he thought I needed. I talked him into sponsoring a literature seminar and an independent mini-term project and into telling me stories about his life and his family and the early Science and Math days. I loved every minute of it and appreciated that he never made me feel like he was too busy to spend a little time talking, even when I'm certain he was. As I approached graduation, I knew one of the things I would miss most was talking with John. So I kept in touch by email and I stopped by school to visit and walk my way into an invite to lunch. Not just any lunch, but the Miller Lunch Bunch. This was an evolving cast of faculty and staff who ate on a rotating lunch schedule. There were set destinations on set days. People joined and exited throughout the meal. No separate checks, only one bill, and everyone paid in cash always. It was heaven. These folks were a professional resource where one could crowdsource information for letters of recommendation or ask for advice on how to deal with a hard situation with a student. But more than that, they were like a second family to one another. This wonderful group of people joked, griped, celebrated each birthday, talked about current events, celebrated some more birthdays, reminisced about the good old days of Science and Math, and listened to each other's joys and sorrows. From this group, with John as their great lunch captain, I learned how it was possible to disagree, to listen vehemently, but still be respectful of each other, to work together for a common goal, even while you might not like each other sometimes. To be open about your opinions, yet willing to hear others, to be civil, to be family by choice. This group was so special to John and became equally special to me. When I returned to Science and Math to work, I could always count on John and the Lunch Bunch for great encouragement and professional advice. One of my favorite pieces of advice from John was always count the votes before the meeting. He realized that sometimes reaching consensus and understanding someone else's position took more time and effort than one conversation, and that it never hurt to know what you were walking into. Another lesson I learned from John that's always stuck with me came the first year that I taught the Shakespeare mini-term course with him. I was so worried that in comparison with his literary prowess, I would have nothing to offer. John stopped me mid-concern in the projector and showed the movies, to which I replied, well, of course I can, that's easy, but I don't have anything really valuable to contribute. He gave me that slightly skeptical John look that I remembered so well from class, the one that meant you are missing something tremendously obvious. Then he said, just because something's easy for you doesn't mean it isn't valuable. I can talk about Shakespeare all day because I've done it for years, but I can't run the projector. I'll do what's easy for you, and I'll do what's easy for me, and it'll be great. In the course of doing mini-term, I found I did have some contributions to make regarding Shakespeare that were useful and insightful, and John's advice gave me the confidence I needed to realize that. Everyone has different gifts, and all of us working together with our different gifts is what makes life happen. In our years of teaching that Shakespeare mini-term is willing to die for it, but a comic hero believes in something so much he's willing to live for it, which is often harder, because it requires compromise and change. I think John was the ultimate comic hero. He believed so much in community and fellowship and our shared experience as people that he was willing to do the hard, messy work of bringing together those of different backgrounds and opinions, and making them so valued and respected. John's kindness and grace stimulate each day, and I am continually inspired by his authentic passions for the things that interested him, but mostly I'm grateful to have known John as a teacher, mentor, and friend. One of my great sadnesses is that my son, Henry, who's less than a week from being one, will never get to know John, because John's the kind of person I want my son to be. One of the last things John ever wrote to me was read on to that baby so hopefully we'll catch the rhythms of the language and learn to love the lull of a valve voice. I'll certainly read on to Henry and tell him stories of John and show him a recording of that infamous French reading, but I also want to challenge all of us here today who love John to carry on those things we loved about him to, if I may misquote, just a little bit, be not the change that we want to see in the world, but the John Miller we want to see in the world, because the world needs more people like John Miller. I'd like to ask to come to the stage next, Stephen Crane, who's from the class of 83. My name is Stephen Crane. I was in the class of 1983 before all of this, believe me. Wonderful and gratifying. Thank you, Pat and Chancellor Roberts for the opportunity to say a few words and remember it's Dr. Miller today. Much has been said already and will continue to be said today, and for a long, long time about Dr. Miller's remarkable legacy as a teacher and a colleague and all of those things are, of course, appropriate and correct and they cannot be overstated. But if you will indulge me for just a few minutes, I want to talk about what Dr. Miller meant to me personally. As I told Dr. Roberts a few weeks ago when we spoke, Dr. Miller was a very important person in my life when I needed a very important person in my life. And while what I want to say is personal, I think it's germane today because I know that many here and assuredly many others who aren't here experienced Dr. Miller the same way that I did. My senior year of high school was the hardest year of my life. The reasons are too tired and too ancient to talk about, but I was lost and Dr. Miller saw that. And from time to time, when he was at the right moment, he would say something to affirm me or to encourage me. He could take the overwrought, pretentious poetry of a 17-year-old boy and I promise you, it was God-awful. And he could make that boy feel like he was the next Wallace Stevens. He had that power. I think that almost all and I would bet all of Dr. Miller's former students would agree that when Dr. Miller stopped and pointed out the merit of something that you had said or when he said that something that you had written was in his word good, well it was if God himself had reached down and tapped you on the shoulder and told you you had merit that you were special. Excuse me for a second. In college and for years after, I was convinced that Dr. Miller possessed some unique magic. A clairvoyance bordering on omniscience, something otherworldly, something mysterious and that he would exercise this magic now and then when it was needed and that that was his gift. And it's only been in the last few years when my oldest children have become young adults that I've come to realize that Dr. Miller didn't possess a unique magic. That wasn't it. He was just a father seeing one of his children in distress and knowing exactly what to say. That was his gift to me and for me, it's meant the entire world. In books and movies we see characterizations of teachers. Idealized forms of teachers and the romantic in us loves these characters. They make us feel good but because we are skilled cynics we have the notion of their actual existence. The literature teacher and dead poet society who inspires every single kindness class through his teaching of Shakespeare, come on, give me a break, right? But we know differently. We know that people like that exist. We were there. He walked among us and he was a giant. Thank you again for this remarkable privilege. Now it's my pleasure to introduce Kim Shankle from the class of 1993. Good afternoon. When Dr. Roberts left me a voicemail a few weeks ago and said I had been recommended to speak today and he said in that voicemail that I had played softball for Dr. Miller. I didn't. So I thought I called him back and I said, maybe you're looking for the person who played softball for Dr. Miller and I can help you find that person if you'd like but he said it was me. He said are you coming and I was like of course I'm going to be there. How could I not be there? So last night I guess over the last few weeks I've been putting together my thoughts and then last night I finally sat down to write my final paper for Dr. Miller and I started last night so I figured I had 12 hours so I was good so and I kept thinking like there'll be an extension because there's always an extension but there's not one so Therese loaned me her pen and I have been down there scratching stuff on here but I had the amazing opportunity for four years two years as a student and then two years as an SLI so as a student I had Dr. Miller my junior year and my roommate Priscilla loved him yes she was obsessed with that man and so I called her early this week and I was like help me help me put together my thoughts and she said he was the ultimate therapist he helped us see ourselves more clearly and it was such a confusing time in our lives and he helped us to ultimately to think more selflessly and when you went down to his office and you sat down in that dimly lit office in that orange chair and you always said hello to Missy as she came by hello and you told him everything you told him your greatest accomplishments you told him your greatest sorrows and you loved just sitting there and you talked and you knew though that he never asked you the easy questions and he would, I can see him he would lean back in his chair and he would interlace his fingers and his fingers would be like and you tell him something and he'd say oh yeah tell me about it and everything was just so open-ended so we'd sit there in his office and we'd tell him about our boyfriends and our families and our hopes and our fears and it just made life better life just made sense when you were sitting in that orange vinyl chair in that dimly lit office so to prepare for today I also, I read through all of our old emails that we had exchanged and I left here as an SLI and became a high school science teacher and it was a few years after I started teaching we exchanged the emails and he wrote to me I'm sure you will be the Dot Doyle of your time and I didn't know I didn't know when I was here as an SLI because I didn't know I didn't know I was going to be a teacher it happened very unexpectedly but he taught me the most important things that I needed to know about being a good teacher and those two things were relationships and experiences and when I was here it was January 2000 and it snowed and it really snowed it snowed 18 inches here and the snow started that evening I feel like it was around 7 or 8 and happy half was amazing the kids were everywhere it was bedlam and I don't know how the plan was hatched but Dot Doyle and I took kids to the golf course after curfew it was after 1030 curfew Kate Compton Helen Compton's daughter was in the group and off we went traipsing into the snow in the dark there were no cell phones no one had contact with us and we went sledding we went down all the way to the golf course and it was amazing and it wasn't the next day it was probably within a few days I got called into my boss's office Warren basket and he wasn't very happy about our little adventure to the golf course and I was a rule follower I'm still a rule follower and it really bothered me that Warren had to call me into his office and have this conversation with me about taking students off campus after curfew but Dot Doyle was with me I left Warren's office and I went downstairs to the orange vinyl chair and I told Dr. Miller all about it and he leaned back in that chair and he goes well good for you he was so proud he was so proud of me and he said those kids are gonna remember that for the rest of their lives and he said they're not gonna remember what I teach them about literature and they're not gonna remember the math problems but they're gonna remember that you you took them sledding after hours and that story I draw on that so many times as a teacher when I'm busy and I'm frantic and there's a kid standing there and I just tell myself stop and have that conversation and have those experiences in class where you get off topic and it veers completely away from whatever it is that you were supposed to be teaching that day because that's what they remember and that's what he taught me about teaching is that those relationships and those experiences and as a teacher I only hope I can have the fraction of an impact that he had so the other things that I partly through the emails that I read and just thinking about today I just kept coming back I sent a message to Therese and I said I'm so nervous can't believe we're having we're doing this and all I could think was he would think this is absurd that we're all sitting here on a Saturday afternoon and he would say don't you people have something better to do than sit around and talk about an old man and look so in my email exchanges they always started it was always about lunch I'd say hey I'm coming to Durham let's go to lunch because that was being part of that lunch bunch when I came back as an SLI and I was part of that bunch I mean Dr. Miller loved lunch he loved lunch and he had no idea how much it meant to me to stop in for lunch to when I came to Durham and it was amazing to be part of that group with Miller and Poe and Doug Gray and I just I believe truly they are eating lunch together every day now and lastly I just I keep coming back to the fact that Dr. Miller he had no idea how special he was to all of us and I emailed him one time and Priscilla and I were coming down for the Grinch to be read and I said can we have lunch afterward and I had said that we were planning to hear someone read a Dr. Seuss book and his response someone thinks that's a long drive for not much and in another email and when I was saying do you have time you wrote to me hearing about your life out west certainly trumps anything on my dance card and I would just like Dr. Miller to know that being here today to honor him trumps anything on our dance cards thank you and next we have Callan Law from the class of 86 alright NCSSM friends and family please take out a half sheet of paper now I wonder how much I really know about John Miller because full disclosure I didn't have him for English at NCSSM a random chance drew me down the hall to experience the weird and wonderful world of Neil Clark but I came to know John over many years of campus visits and numerous Friday lunches with his lunch bunch crew and there's one thing about John Miller of which I am certain he was born and a button down shirt and I'm surprised more of you didn't get the memo about today's dress code so a couple of things happened when the news of John's passing was shared online in early October number one it prompted our dear friend Brock Winslow to make his first and only probably ever post to social media and number two the outpouring of thoughts and reactions from the alumni basically broke Facebook for a day so great was the love from the NCSSM community that week that it became clear we needed to collect the pictures and stories to celebrate what John Miller meant to NCSSM and so we did and I have four of those memories from over the years to share with you today I'd like to start by sharing a short piece written by John Miller himself for many this might be very difficult to hear even after many years and might possibly bring on fever sweats for what I'm about to read to you are the instructions found on the outside of his sloppily stapled exams it begins in one hour and 45 minutes from the time you open this question this includes thinking time, writing time recopying time and break time answer it in a well constructed essay close books, close notes, close dears, etc open mind do not be shy, bashful, or modest do not hide your light under a bushel fear not, flaunt your learning unabashedly be precise specific, wide ranging, witty and articulate don't back off, be brilliant John Miller was a concise and clever man he essentially summarized his teaching and mentoring style right there in a tiny tortuous take home exam and from all the alumni stories it's readily apparent that we now realize that his rules to follow for his exams were also his rules to follow for life itself and I'd like to share a few memories sent in by alumni over these recent weeks this comes from Mandy Slater, class of 86, classmate of mine and these are excerpts from a letter she wrote called a letter of recommendation for Dr. Miller for his retirement I have been a groupie of Dr. John Miller for 30 years I would like to recommend him for the position of retirement based on the following observations Dr. Miller has unparalleled aptitude for sloth he can easily sit for hours reading books that no one else on earth would find interesting Dr. Miller is a ludite he has never kept up well with the times he probably has an incandescent light in that hideous orange lamp on his desk Dr. Miller has no space left on his walls for modern contributions his aging decor suggests an equally cluttered mind Dr. Miller is unfailingly polite in an increasingly impolite world moreover most doors open themselves now rendering his chivalry irrelevant there is no station wagon in the current U.S. Ford lineup sedan yes hatchback yes a man is known by the car he keeps so if Ford has retired the station wagon did you know that I learned the pattern of the shadows in the hallway to your office so that I could tell if you were there without walking all the way down did you know I use the worst lines in English literature regularly when mocking my children other moms roll their eyes I fall upon the thorns of life and bleed did you know I always allow the door to be open for me if it is offered and I always say thank you did you know that I instantly lose respect for people if I hear them say at this point in time remember that you once claimed that I would be happy anywhere true but I can also say with a certainty born of 30 years of reflection that some of life's most intensely happy memories have come from sitting hunched in that dreadful orange chair on the other side of your stern metal desk while you would listen or admonish or both and now memory from Christian Gaylord from the class of 2015 it was a warm September afternoon in the beginning of my senior year at Science and Math as we sat in Dr. Miller's classroom waiting for him to arrive true to form he suddenly came barreling around the corner walked through the door and stopped as he gazed around the room I apologize for being late life happens he said cheerfully as he walked over to his desk in the front of the classroom and took a seat he then proceeded to shuffle through several papers before arriving contently at the stack of syllabi which he promptly handed out this is the syllabus for this course please for the love of God don't read it he paused smiled and continued you are all young people with exciting lives to live take your sweethearts to lunch go for a walk solve a math problem if that's what you really like to do time is precious don't waste it reading this document he said as he shook it up and down the only thing you really need to know is that your first essay is due October 15th but I don't much care about whether or not you turn it in on that day another long pause looking around at you here it's clear that none of you are going to make good grades away now I'd like to finish by sharing something sent by Neil Clark just a few days ago Neil couldn't be here today but he wished he could have he started as you've heard teaching English with John at the very beginning and like most that wanted to he struggled very hard to put words to paper he wrote this he said a bit in the form of a sonnet I'm going to butcher it mightily I'm sure so please forgive my unpracticed reading of his verse when to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past I often think of my old friend John Miller at that time we sweated in the eyes of heaven shine to lay the new foundation of a school to be precisely honest we cut grass great green swaths of long tough grass which dulled the blades of both our sturdy sides I said why don't we pause and take a break they also serve who only stand and wait we sat and dreamed an intellectual dream of young women and young men learning to love learning and each other before they march out to save the world we left the lawn to look like a bad haircut we saw two roads diverging in a wood I took the one less traveled by and ended up in Illinois kicking at the pricks Miller stayed the school grew and prospered he with it until he had practically become it and then he died fulfilled admired released most men don't become anything much less a school and finally my goal was to coalesce the things submitted by the alumni and in the hope there was time and gonna indulge myself I wanted to share something else I didn't write that sums up everything remembered from all of you that love John Miller and I think it's just perfect so enjoy yourselves do the things that matter because there isn't time and space to do it all love the things you try drink a cocktail wear a tie show a little grace if you should fall don't live another day unless you make it count there's someone else that you're supposed to be something deep inside of you that still wants out and shame on you if you don't set it free so the submissions and pictures sent in by the NCSSM community have been collected in a booklet of memories which includes some wonderful stories and poems and a few delightful letters that were sent in by students from John and I gotta say the man did not write a cursory thank you note and here's a project if we would collect those letters what a wonderful book that would make there are great read I suggest we're gonna have some of the copies of the memories out for everyone to see and we have a wonderful copy for the family to have and lastly we've compiled a photo book of photos you've seen here of John through the years at NCSSM and we really want to present this and to the family with our heartfelt thanks of sharing him with us all these years so thank you very much and now we're gonna hear from Mr. Tom Miller so contrary to the way these things usually begin I am accustomed to public speaking but after hearing the lovely words from so many of your of my brother's students and his colleagues I'm kind of a mess so you'll forgive me so my name is Tom Miller and I am John Miller's Dr. Miller's brother and here with me today are his wife Pat and nearly all the members of our close family and there's not very many of us on their behalf, on my behalf I thank you the organizers and the speakers and all of you who've come from near and far for this lovely and moving memorial pardon me to share the grief of John's death among so many has lightened the burden for me and for all of us so over the past weeks I have thought often about best to remember John and I've decided that the best way is to from time to time to read a poem preferably from a book a real book poetry was special to John and his last days when he was organizing his affairs as people in his situation do one of the things that he did was to make lists of his favorite poems it was something that he felt that he had to get organized something that had to be settled and some of you out there I know helped him with that and when he was suffering and a little nervous and a little pain that meant so much fittingly for nearly the whole time that he taught here 35 years he had stuck on the door of his office a large piece of poster paper written a line from the Thanatopsis William Cohen Bryant's great poem about death and the healing consolation of nature the line went, if I recall correctly I saw it often brother to the insensible rock and sluggish clod I always took that personally and protested but he never took it down when he retired however he carefully rolled the faded paper up and took it home, Pat has it now and I still have mixed feelings about it so remember John Byer reading a poem anything you like really he would be thrilled it would especially please him to know that in your cluttered office or by your bed at night you kept some well-loved slender volume of verse so again I, we, thank you all again I'd like to thank all of the speakers today for your wonderful words and memories and as Colin mentioned there were hundreds hundreds of posts about John and again to the family thank you so much for allowing us to honor John in this way and to have you here as you can see he meant a lot to a lot of people so thank you following this ceremony we do have a reception planned just down the hallway if you haven't been to the school in a while if you follow out this way or this way down the hallway and to your right there is the music suite where we have a reception with some food and as Colin mentioned the books that you can take a look at and the photos and it's a lot of folks here and it's not a huge space so feel free to navigate anywhere you'd like in there, in the hallway or if you take the elevator down to the Woolworth room and again I want to thank all of you for being here today and for your again present show of what John meant to all of us over these many years at NCSSM there's so many alumni here there's so many faculty from the very first days here Chuck Elber here the first director of the school and so again thank you all for honoring the memory and the work and the legacy of Dr. John Miller thank you