An email exchange with Dr. Loren Pennington, Professor at Emporia State University and my Master Degree advisor
From: "Loren Pennington"
Date: January 27, 2010 at 6:00:24 PM CST
To:
Subject: Re: A thank you from an old student
Wednesday
Dear Mr. Heaton
I was delighted to hear from you. While I do not remember your face, I do remember your name very well. I presume you were with at the local high school in Pratt or at the Community College. At age 83 I haven't taught class at ESU since the 1990s, but I am still holding forth at the University as an adjunct professor in a variety of projects and am working on a couple of books which may or may not get done.
I much appreciated your email, which was a real tonic for my day.
Loren Pennington
kurt heaton
Dear Doctor Pennington,
I attended Emporia state in the Summer Of 1968 on a nation grant. I began serious pursuit of a Masters Degree in the summer of 1970. You were my advisor and I wanted to relate to you an experience I had in my very first class that summer. I believe It was held in your office. There were 6 or 8 of us there. I was nervous and somewhat unsure of my self. You asked a question and remember part of my answer "sort of scientific". A fellow student, quite sure of himself, jumped in and put down my answer. An you did something that affected me for the rest of my teaching career. You defended my answer. Now I suspect that my answer was not that good, but I learned something that day that I applied to my teaching for 38 years. All answers have value. So I just want to thank you for that very small moment. It helped shape my teaching philosophy. Kurt Heaton Emporia 1968-1972- Master Degree Social Science( I know they don't offer this degree any more, but I wanted to have a broad appeal in the Social Science area. I taught Economics and World History for 38 year in Pratt and loved every minute of It.) again, thank you
