Nose for News by Sarah Stultz

 

Have you ever had a teacher who inspired you not only to learn but to be a better person, too?

I had one of those teachers when I attended Brigham Young University. Who would have known that as a freshman 17 years ago, I would have met a professor who would change my life and the lives of many of my friends forever.

All first-year students were required to take a biology class, and we knew from day one that we were in for a ride of a lifetime with the professor, Gary Booth. Dr. Booth, as we all called him, was a quirky, kind, humorous man who made us excited to learn about anything he taught.

I remember him standing in a Jedi robe with a light saber on the first day of class and how right from the start he cared for each of his students individually, often inviting us to come up to his office if we had questions about anything in his class or if we were struggling with anything in life.

At the beginning of the semester, he issued his students a challenge: If we were ever late to class, got excessively angry or forgot to make our beds, we owed him a yogurt.

His goal was to have a year without any yogurts — though it never happened. One day, he would get one yogurt, while another he would get a whole case.

It was a silly challenge, but it helped us be aware of our thoughts and actions.

Never before had I been so excited to learn about the double helix or his studies about the effects of DDT. I’ll always remember how crazy we thought he was for being so adamant about not putting food in plastic containers — and that was long before the hype we see today about using glass containers instead of plastic.

I could have done without his Madagascar hissing cockroaches, but being that he was an entomologist, it was fun to see his love for those creatures.

He told me he had wanted to be a teacher since he was 8 years old and that he gained a love for biology from his mother, who was a botanist, and from his father, who was a naturalist.

“Biology is life,” he would often say.

I enjoyed my biology class so much, I knew once it was done I wanted to find a way that I could take another class from this remarkable man. I signed up to take a religion class from him, and there, he incorporated the same magnetic personality with more information about God and scripture. I already knew he was a man who was close to God, and seeing his example made all of his students want to do what we could to be close to God, too.

My relationship with Dr. Booth didn’t end as a student, however. My close friend and I worked for him as teaching assistants, helping grade papers and do essentially anything he needed done to help him with his classes. 

I have not spoken to him in several years, but I have a warm feeling in my heart as I think about all the wonderful memories I shared with this man — and the thousands of students who were impacted by his decades of teaching.

I got a message last week from my friend who lives in Utah that Dr. Booth passed away after a battle with rheumatoid arthritis-induced pulmonary fibrosis. It is unimaginable that this amazing man, who ran marathons with ease even as we saw him in his 60s, ultimately succumbed to the  frailties of this mortal existence.

Oh captain, my captain — may you find peace now from your earthly troubles, and may your loved ones know what a profound impact you had on so many.

Sarah Stultz is the managing editor of the Tribune. Her column appears every Tuesday.