A TRIBUTE TO SHIRLEY SARGENT BY ALAN HENNINGER

         I will always be grateful to Claire Kopp for allowing me to speak at the Celebration of Shirley Sargent held at the Ahwahnee in April 2OO2. While all my comments were based on a kernel of truth in events we shared some 50 years past, they were presented in the overstated and sometimes understated form of a roast, a forum that didn’t allow Shirley to point out the lack of accuracy and attention to detail in my comments. The truth of the matter is that the comments only hinted at the profound influence Shirley had on my life, a fact that, at the celebration, only Shirley and a few others may have recognized.

         For me, Shirley’s life is a triumph of the will. To an extent greater than for most of us, her life was shaped by her physical circumstances. She had an active, agile mind housed in a body that for most of us would have provided insurmountable circumstances. Shirley placed great value on her independence, and in her pursuit of that independence, she demonstrated to me the value of perseverance and tenacity. It was these two traits that allowed me to successfully pursue and succeed in the battle to rebuild in Foresta after the 1990 fire. She expanded my horizons of the world and my experience in that world. It was her interest in history, the attention to detail and the necessity to accurately portray events, two hallmarks of her scholarship, that inspired me to teach history. Even though I eventually became a geographer, it was Shirley who introduced me to the path that eventually led there; and for most of my teaching career, I was a geographer masquerading as a history teacher. I spent 38 years as a classroom teacher, and during that time, in an effort to avoid distractions and the hard questions, I gave the students one day to ask me any question they wished. The one consistent question was along the lines “What are your core values?”. Over time I distilled the answer down to these four items: Revere all life. Stand up for what you believe in. Accept responsibility for your actions and their derivatives, and Strive for excellence. While these items have different sources and various influences, they contain within the inevitable workings of the mind and hand of Shirley Sargent. For some 52 years of friendship we shared and she enhanced these values.

          Shirley may have had longer friendships; she may have had deeper friendships; but for me, outside my family, there was no person that had a greater impact on my life as I moved from childhood to adulthood.