Most Likely to Wear a Cowboy Hat

Max Parshall was probably my favorite professor. His domain was the hydraulics lab. One of the people who submitted memories of him stated that during his lectures he seemed to be reading a telemeter with his eyes on the wall near the ceiling. I do not remember him that way at all. He always interacted with us students in a very personal manner and was always open at any time to questions or arguments we might have. Of course, the fact that our classes in those days were only composed of 6 or 8 people might have had something to do with it.

The thing that impressed Max indelibly on my memory was his dress code. Most times he dressed informally with a large cowboy hat. Other times his wife sent him to school in a neat, clean, and unwrinkled suit (but always with the cowboy hat). When this happened, invariably by 11:00 AM the suit would be wrinkled and covered with cement dust and other debris from his hydraulic activities.

I am attaching two pictures; one of Max and the other of three of my friends in front of the Civil Engineering building. Note how proud we were of our slide rules in those days before electronic calculators.

Other Civil Engineering professors that I have fond memories of were Bob Lewis and Maury Albertson. I believe that my classes with Dr. Albertson were during his very early teaching career. Jack Cermac was a graduate student at the time.

Some of my student friends at the time were Gil Cory, Oliver Stoddard (he played football), Moe Bishard, Frank Myzwinski, George Fushigami, Ernesto Pierson (from Nicaragua), and Ernie Bowman (a Navajo Indian). George and Ernesto are in the picture in front of the CE building.

I retired from the State of California in 1987 after working for 39 years and supervising about two billion dollars worth of highway bridge construction. I continued to work for another 15 years as a consultant. Thank you for this opportunity to reminisce my very fond memories of Colorado A&M.