Golden Jubilee

I was an ignorant student of photography under the capable tutelage of brother Barney. When we began working in the darkroom, he had us mix our own chemicals and process our film in total darkness. I did not understand the complaints of some of my more knowledgeable classmates until a later lab session where pre-mixed chemicals and developing tanks were introduced.

I am grateful to brother Barney for having us do our work the hard way, because by so doing I got an appreciation for the chemistry and processes that would have otherwise gone unappreciated in the more efficient and much simpler machinery of later technology.

Ralph Barney was a certifiable genius and wit, who had a low threshold for stupidity and pettiness. I was a new faculty member, when he was one of "bigs" on campus, and I was grateful for his help and friendship, especially when I started to date one of his prize pupils and protegees. Even after 40-plus years of marriage, my wife, Carmen, still regards Ralph and another teacher, Richard Waite, as her two "knights in shining armor."

Thanks, Ralph, for setting such an impossibly high standard.