Like so many others, I’m saddened to learn that John Lovas died
yesterday. John was a dedicated teacher and faculty member at Deanza
Community College; he is well-known in the field as a champion of the teaching
of writing in two-year colleges, as a recent chair of the CCCC in Denver in
2000, as a reasoned, thoughtful, and patient colleague. Far more personal
for me: John’s frequent comments and encouragement here in this weblog. In
fact, as I just looked back at some of my early entries to find when I
first came to know John, I found that he was my second commenter–the first
who I didn’t know (and I’d been blogging just one week). A spark! From
him, in that exchange on seating arrangements, I learned the "to each, one move"
rule and stopped putting desks back into ordered rows once and for all. He
was steady with similar insights, and in time, I came to regard him as a friend
and a mentor even though I hadn’t ever met him in person. I finally did
meet John in San Francisco during the CCCC in March. I’ll miss his being t/here.
Since early May, his own
weblog had grown unusually
quiet; his entries clued us to some change, but I had no idea he’d been
diagnosed with cancer.
Clearly this entry isn’t half the panegyric I think his memory is due.
Other’s are posting at the
festschrift site and at
their
blogs.