During high school I went to summer music camps at Western State College in Gunnison and the University of Colorado in Boulder. I was interested in mathematics as well as music, and had hopes of getting a double major. Those plans were modified when I started college at Colorado State College, now the University of Northern Colorado, in Greeley. I had a music scholarship which required that I essentially fill up my schedule with numerous one-hour courses in music, but no room for a mathematics course.
I tried out for Choral-Aires, a group of 32 singers who had done a USO tour of Japan during the summer of 1958. I was surprised to make the cut, and I still maintain close contact with some former members now living in the Northern Colorado area.
I pledged the ACACIA fraternity and lived in the fraternity house my sophomore year. During my sophomore year I took three quarters of calculus, toured with the college band, toured with Choral-Aires, and played in a recital on baritone. There was a possibility of another Choral-Aires tour to Japan. In the spring we learned that there would be a tour, but funding was reduced so that only 16 singers would be traveling. This time I didn’t make the cut.
Carol was then a graduate student in mathematics at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces and she urged me to go to NMSU for the summer and take some higher-level mathematics courses so that I could find out what mathematics is all about. The Russians had launched Sputnik I in October of 1957, and there was a big push to improve mathematics and science education. As a part of that push, NMSU was offering several summer courses including advanced calculus and abstract algebra for secondary mathematics teachers. Although I didn’t exactly fit that mold, but I decided to go to Las Cruces and see what I could learn.
That is how I got started majoring in mathematics at New Mexico State. I had a love for both music and mathematics, but I decided that I could more easily major in mathematics and perform some music on the side, rather than the other way around. It helps to have connections. With Carol’s ability to accompany on piano, she knew several faculty members in the music department. Thanks to her, I got a music scholarship and played baritone in the marching band, trombone in the stage band, and I sang tenor in the chorus. The stage band chartered a bus and competed in the national collegiate stage band contest held on the Notre Dame campus. No prizes, but lots of fun and not much sleep. The big performance for the chorus and orchestra was Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana.
During my junior year, the Chicago Little Symphony played a concert at NMSU. After the concert, I talked with one of the musicians, Bill Gower. A member of the music faculty at Colorado State College, he said that he was going to lead the summer band and offered me a scholarship to spend in summer back in Greeley. That busy and enjoyable summer included no mathematics, but I played a solo with the CSU summer band, performed the role of Vasek in Smetana’s opera The Bartered Bride, and took a full year’s worth of German.
Back in Las Cruces for my senior year, for the first time I started thinking about graduate school in mathematics. An offer of a graduate teaching assistantship was too much to ignore. Ralph Crouch learned about my background growing up on a farm and assigned me to teach Ag Math, also known as Mathematics for Students of Agriculture.
Little did I realize how much my life was about to change. I shared an office with another graduate student, Mary Ann Seagraves. Mary Ann was married, but she had a very attractive younger sister, Linda. Mary Ann needed someone to substitute for her in the class she was teaching. I agreed to substitute if she would put in a good word for me with her younger sister. Things moved very quickly, and Linda and I were married the next summer on July 6, 1963.