Longtime educator Hause deserves a ringing tribute
Rocky Mountain News
Saturday, December 24, 2005
Author: Gary Massaro, Rocky Mountain News
This is one way to describe Rich Hause's distinguished career in education: He had a bell of a time.
About 10 years ago, Rich was still a professor of education at Kansas State University when lightning hit the tower of the original K-State building and set it on fire. Later, someone discovered the original school bell - the Bluemont Bell, all 800 pounds of it - was still in the tower. The school retrieved it, cleaned it up and made a special place for the old bell outside the College of Education.
And when Rich retired in 1995, the school dedicated the bell to him.
Rich died Sunday of a heart attack. He was 73.
He was born May 5, 1932, to Jesse and Evelyn Frye Hause, who had a dairy and farm near Fort Lupton.
Rich knew early on he wanted to be a teacher because of a progressive principal and role model, Howard Beattie, at the old Independence school. Later on, when Rich returned to what is now the University of Northern Colorado in 1974 to accept a distinguished alumni award, Beattie came to the ceremony.
Rich was at Brighton High School , working as the business manager of the yearbook when he met Nancy Pike, who was the editor.
"We went out and sold ads together. We started dating," she said.
Nancy went to the University of Colorado; Rich attended what was then Colorado State College in Greeley.
"We saw each other as often as we could," she said. "We wrote to each other every day. We were too poor to make phone calls."
They were married July 19, 1953.
Nancy graduated with a degree in journalism, and then went to work in Greeley to support Rich through his bachelor's and master's degrees in English education.
He taught in Kern County schools in Bakersfield, Calif., before returning to Colorado to get his doctorate of education degree from CU.
In 1966, Rich headed for Kansas State, where he was an English professor.
He wrote a lot of articles for education journals about the innovative teaching methods used by Beattie.
And he incorporated those methods in his own classes.
"His specialty was a graduate class for teachers on creativity in education, a class he taught all over the United States and at the Seoul Foreign School in South Korea," Nancy said.
Youngest daughter Lauren Butler, of Parkville, Mo., recalled her father's words when she was leaving to visit friends.
"He'd say, 'Remember whose you are,' " she said.
After Rich and Nancy retired - she taught journalism for 15 years at K-State - they moved to Estes Park. For Rich, the move was a boyhood dream come true.
"The family would picnic in the mountains on weekends. They always had to leave because of the dairy," Nancy said. "Rich told his mother, 'Someday, I'm going to Estes Park and I'm not coming home.' "
He kept busy. He collected old signs and chairs.
"He refinished furniture," Nancy said. "Every time he saw a chair, he'd feel so sorry for it, he'd bring it home."
He could talk most folks out of old signs. He'd usually tell Nancy that the "poor thing fell into the bed of my pickup truck."
He was active in St. Bartholomew Episcopal Church, the Estes Park Museum Board and the Rotary Club.
Kansas State honored Rich by naming an education lecture series after him.
There was another honor. During the funeral Thursday, the dean of the College of Education at Kansas State walked up to the old Bluemont Bell and rang it in memory of Rich.
In addition to Nancy and Lauren, Rich is survived by three other children, Janie Sheperd, of Elk Grove, Calif., Lesley, of Kansas City. Mo., and Andrew of Lawrence, Kan.; three brothers, Al, of Brighton, Jo, of Eaton, and Gil, of Greeley; a sister, Mary Margaret Cox, of Greeley, and five grandchildren.