Like a blank canvas to Picasso, the classroom has held an
irresistible attraction for Richard L. Price since childhood.
Now 76 and retired for more than a year from his post
as associate professor of mathematics, Price still cannot escape
the magnetism of books and chalkboards and the joy of being surrounded
by learning.
A Beaumont native, Price grew up in an environment that
valued education. His father was his high school principal and his
church pastor. Along with the promise of education and religious
life, the elder Price taught his six sons and six daughters to appreciate
a strong home life, political life and community involvement.
Richard Price knew he would continue his education after his 1949
high school graduation but could not consider enrolling at Lamar
because integration was still seven years away. Decades later, he
found the invitation to join the Lamar community in a different
way intriguing.
When Price completed his doctoral degree at Ohio State
University, he had job offers from several colleges. One came from
Lloyd Cherry, dean of Lamar’s College of Engineering, and included
the promise of an office in the new engineering building, now
Cherry Engineering. “Something about the opportunity to come
back home” resonated, Price said. “It was a very genuine offer on
his part that he really would like to see me there. I accepted, and it
turned out to be a very positive thing.”
After a year in the Lamar classroom, Price requested and
received a leave of absence to study religion at the Yale Divinity
School. His 40th birthday—a self-imposed deadline for formal education—
was approaching, so a year at Yale earning a master’s degree
in religion was his last chance. “At 40, I was getting that degree.
That had been a dream of mine for some years. Then, okay, anything
I want to do now education wise, I’ll pick up the book,” Price
said. “Otherwise, I would still be back in school today.”
Price’s days as a student are in the past, but an atmosphere of
learning always seems to surround him. He returned to Lamar after
receiving his Yale degree and spent more than 30 years teaching students
inside the classroom and out. Rena Clark ’84 remembers Price
as “an incredible teacher. You would walk into his class, and you
knew that his primary goal was to make certain that everybody who
sat in his classroom left with an understanding of whatever the
topic was that day.” He would do whatever it took to make that
happen, including removing his shoes and using a shoestring to
illustrate some mathematical concept.
Price’s influence outside the classroom was equally impressive.
He advised the campus chapter of the National Society of Black
Engineers and had a prominent role in the national organization,
which honored him with its Golden Torch Award for lifetime
achievement.
Clark—a principal in a private equity firm in Boston—became
reacquainted through her church with a former national student
president of the National Society of Black Engineers. “The first
words out of his mouth were ‘Dr. Richard Price’ and ‘How is he?’”
Clark said. Clark’s friend recalled Price’s thoughtfulness, intelligence
and aptitude for developing student leaders. “It was everything I
had experienced as a student on the campus,” Clark said. “I enjoyed
my experience at Lamar a great deal, but I’m not sure it would have
been the sort of experience I reflect so fondly on today had it not
been for the encounters I had with Dr. Price.”
Price did more than work with black engineering
students at Lamar. He drew many of them
to the university. For most of his Lamar tenure, he
served as director of minority recruiting and retention
for the College of Engineering. The need for
the position was apparent in the early 1970s. In his
early years at Lamar, Price did not teach a single
black student. After recruiting and finding scholarships
for minority engineering majors, Price
walked into an 8 a.m. differential equations class
one day and saw several black students. “The first
thing I did was turn around. I must be in the
wrong class,” Price said. “But no, those were students
I had recruited. They had made their way up
to differential equations.” He continued to see
many of his recruits in classes, but not all of them.
“Some would say, ‘No Doc, I’m going to go somewhere else,’
because my standards tended to be kind of high, kind of tough.”
Despite demanding expectations, students found him a warm
and welcoming presence on campus. “We all remember having him
greet us with “Oh, chile,’” said Beaumont neurosurgeon Dr.
Tamerla Chavis ’83. “He was just a wonderful person. He was very
approachable. He would tutor you any time of the day you came to
his office whether or not you were taking his class. He was a wonderful
asset to the university.”
Minority recruiting turned out to be a good assignment for
Price. By starting with a few students and helping them succeed, he
created a network he could use to attract other promising students
and built a track record he could tout to capture more scholarship
money. The job started with a request from Cherry, but the appeal
of opening doors to help the next generation succeed goes back further,
to words Price heard from a high school teacher. “She told me
one time, ‘Richard, you’ve got to make it in life. Why? Because if
you make it, I think we can get a whole lot of other youngsters that
will make it.’ That is something that has stuck with me over the
years,” Price said. As he opened doors for his students during 36
years at Lamar, he is beginning to see them find their own ways to
assist young students coming of age today.
Although Price retired from Lamar in August 2006, he could
not stay away from the classroom long. He spent about four
months as a retiree. Each day, he would get his teenage son off to
classes at Ozen High School. Then, he would take a long ride on
one of his bicycles and come home to read. That lasted until
January when an Ozen teacher asked Price to help students prepare
for the mathematics portion of an academic decathlon. On campus
for the one-day commitment, Price was asked by Ozen’s principal,
James Broussard, to consider teaching a few classes. He agreed to
teach four, two Advanced Placement calculus classes and two
Advanced Placement pre-calculus.
“In the classroom, it doesn’t matter if these are graduate students
or undergraduate or high school,” Price said. “I don’t mind
going down and finding out where you are and starting at that level
if you’re going to let me raise you up because I’ve got my standards.
I haven’t had to compromise my standards.
It’s an environment where they’re expected to go to
the board and do some things. You see the light
that comes into their eyes when they can say ‘Oh, I
see what you’re doing Doc.’”
His work with young students doesn’t stop at
Ozen. Saturdays this spring, Price coached
Southeast Texas students for a math and science
competition sponsored by the Texas Alliance for
Minorities in Engineering. Price and Annie Carter,
chair of Golden Triangle-Texas Alliance for
Minorities in Engineering, have taken students to
state and national competitions for years, and other
attendees always notice Price, Carter said. “It’s an
amazing event when he’s there,” she said. “Folks
immediately know who he is. He’s pretty humble
about it.” She called Price an icon throughout
Southeast Texas and in engineering circles around the country. She
honored that iconic status by establishing an endowed scholarship
in Price’s name to mark his 70th birthday. Through January, gifts
from friends and former students had boosted the fund to more
than $45,000.
Price dismissed the question of what it meant to him. “The
main thing is that it creates an opportunity for another youngster to
go to school. It’s nothing personal about it. I can take it or leave it.
But if it’s an avenue that gets another youngster to say I can get a
scholarship and go to school,” Price said, smiling, his meaning clear.
For Price, the emphasis has always been on making available
opportunities to learn. It’s something he stressed in his family and
his classroom, whether the “Yes, chile” he addressed was related by
blood or affinity. In addition to his son, Price has three adult daughters,
two grandsons and a great-granddaughter. His family of former
students is larger. He always told his Lamar students “in four
or five years I want to see you gone,” but his connection with them
did not end then. Like a proud father, he watched his students
attain advanced degrees and increased professional responsibilities.
He traveled to attend graduation exercises and weddings and to
welcome children of former students into the world. “They stay in
touch with me. They still will call and say, ‘Doc just checking on
you,’” Price said. “It’s been fulfilling.”
