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NEWS:
DECEMBER 2013
Remembering
Don Whiteside
 Don
Marstan Whiteside, born September 18, 1935, in Euclid,
Ohio died in San Clemente on November 22, 2013, after
suffering from a series of strokes. Don had a 27 year
career in the U.S. Air Force, served as a Commanding
Officer in the Office of Special Investigations,
travelled the world, and retired a full Colonel. Don
loved time with his wife and family, gardening, managing
stocks, and following Ohio State Football. He was a hard
worker and even in retirement
he liked vigorous walks along the beach and out on the
pier. He is survived by his loving wife of 55 years,
Carol Sue Whiteside, four children/four grandchildren
and a sister, Jean Hodges. His family had his brain
donated to the Human Brain and Spinal Fluid Resource
Center at UCLA. A family memorial will be scheduled at
a later date. Donations can be made to the National
Alliance of Mental IIlness (NAMI) or the Wounded Warrior
Project in Don’s name.
NEWS:
DECEMBER 2012
Christmas
Traditions to
Hold Dear
By Jean Hodges
I
suppose most of our lives are about letting go of some
stage and beginning some new phase. It becomes even
clearer as one reaches the elder years---the time of
retirement, a time when maintaining one's health takes
the priority over a career, where taking time to focus
on relationships becomes more important than activities
and busy-ness, and where nurturing one's own spiritual
growth, doing soul-work, is more important than outer
achievement.
Christmas traditions I have a hard time letting go of.
Early in December, I made some sugar cookie dough and
refrigerated it to be ready for five teenagers (three
being grandchildren and two being respective boy or
girlfriends) and Beth to come over to cut-out and
decorate Christmas cookies and learn about candy-making.
Kris and I have made peanut brittle together for three
years so far because it’s important to us both to pass
on that Christmas tradition to a new generation. Rae
and her boyfriend made the fudge for the first time this
year. We will give all the goodies away to neighbors,
friends, and family, and of course, save some to eat!
That's all about relationships—the making, the eating,
the giving away.
Last year I said to Rae, “I don’t know if I want to put
up the tree this year.” She quickly replied, “Oh
Grandma, you have to have the tree. I’ll help you.”
That’s what I needed to hear because I can no longer
crawl on hands and knees to the back of the front closet
under the stairs to retrieve all the stored boxes of
lights, ornaments and artificial tree. I suppose our
Christmas tree is a container of memories for me. With
Rae to help I don’t have to let go of the hassle of the
annual decorating yet, even if I do it most of it alone
after Jack helps arranging the light strings. Then
there’s the manger scene that my brother’s family sent
us sometime in the 60’s when he was stationed in
Germany. I take it out lovingly each Christmas and add
it to other crèches we have collected from Peru,
Oberammergau, and Mexico. Its music box plays “Silent
Night” for us every Christmas Eve as Jack and I sit by
the fire after church services and savor the quiet time.
Ornaments carry some of our family history---a few
mottled glass balls looking every bit like the survivors
they are of our first Christmas over 50 years ago, a
paper teddy bear scribbled on by 18-month-old Ben
(now40-something); a nest of delicate glass bells from a
former student, a quilt fragment sewn into a heart by a
friend; many unique wooden soldiers and straw dolls and
painted birds from foreign countries where we have
traveled; delicate painted egg shells with glitter from
l973 and tiny angels imbedded in the hollow of a milk
weed pod from early family craft projects. Our topper
is a paper plate folded to make an angel with lopsided
wings, made by Kate when she was two. Each year I
wonder if this will be the last year for the tree and
each year I succumb to the joy of remembering. When will
I know that it's time to let go of all those symbols of
our family history? I suppose my body will tell me. But
until then, I bask each night in the glow of sparkling
lights that embrace that tree of memories.
By now, I have learned that the best part of Christmas
is the preparation to get there. The making of caramels
and peanut brittle to give away to people I care about
and want to appreciate. The notes to friends I only
hear from at this time each year. The Christmas
decorating for a month of sparkly colored lights in the
darkest time of the year. The wrapping of small gifts
accumulated over the year from distant places that evoke
travel adventures, the writing of special poems, and the
music--the carols and candlelight in church imbedded in
the retelling of the familiar story of Love Made
Flesh. Well, it's all a part of that Spirit that I
call the real Christmas. We make our own Christmas
memories and I'm glad I have mine and that you are a
part of them.
NEWS:
DECEMBER 2011
Local Delegation Attends National PFLAG Convention
Jean was very proud of the six-person Boulder County
delegation that attended the National PFLAG Convention
in Washington on Nov. 3-6, 2011. They all agreed that it
was the best national convention ever.
On Lobby Day some 180 PFLAGers from across the country
met with senators and representatives from their
respective states. The Colorado group met with Senator
Mark Udall’s legislative aides and with Senator Michael
Bennet and his staff to make a difference about upcoming
bills: H.R.1648/S.506 focuses on preventing
student-on-student bullying and harassment and H.R.998
which addresses discrimination by schools or school
employees and provides for legal remedy in cases of
bullying and harassment. A visit to Barney Frank’s
office scored a promise by aide, Diego Sanchez, to do a
screening of Boulder-produced film “Faces and Facets”
for legislators in the near future.
The Convention was opened by Dr. Jill Biden, the Second
Lady, a mom, a grandmother, life-long educator and a
much sought-after speaker. One of her aides, who is gay,
convinced Dr. Biden to choose PFLAG as one of her many
speaking invitations because of what PFLAG meant to him
and his family. After her affirming words of support for
the PFLAG mission, she walked backstage to see her aide
in tears. Both wept as they embraced with a new bond of
understanding.
Other plenary speakers included a special FBI agent and
persons from the Department of Justice and the Civil
Rights Commission who asked to speak to PFLAG about
partnering to stop LGBTQ hate crimes and bullying.
Included in the 45 workshop sessions was one featuring
the Boulder-produced film,
“Faces
and Facets of Transgender Experience”
led by Karen Adams, mother of a gender variant child
and Jean as Executive Producer.
At their
PFLAG table, where Jack was in charge, some 78 DVD’s
were sold and 25 were given away to legislators and some
of the speakers.
The convention climax was the Awards Banquet where Betty
DeGeneres received the first “Betty DeGeneres Advocate
Award”. Who can forget her inspiring and often hilarious
words as she showed us video clips of her comic bits on
Ellen’s show? Jean was pleased to have a picture taken
with such a gracious and unpretentious lady. She also
gave Betty a copy of “Faces and Facets” with the
request that she watch it with Ellen. She said she
would. Highlight of the evening for Boulder folks
however, was their chapter receiving Special Recognition
for Outstanding Contribution for this 22 minute film
which met the criteria for all three aspects of the
PFLAG mission and has reached across the country in its
distribution.
The convention concluded with a thoughtful panel of clergy
from many faiths who spoke of the challenge to faith
communities to work toward LGBTQ equality and inclusion.
Each delegate left inspired with actions to pursue.
Jean came away with the deep satisfaction of being part
of this national organization as chair of the Regional
Directors Council and National vice-president working
with an amazing national staff and the empowered 250
chapters across the country that are the life blood of
the movement for LGBTQ equality.
View photos
from the 2011 PFLAG
Convention.
NEWS:
MARCH 2010
Math
Professor's Frugality Adds Up For Future Students
By Clint Talbott
Republished from the
University of Colorado online
Growing up in
the Great Depression, John H. “Jack” Hodges
learned to be frugal. As a professor of
mathematics at the University of Colorado,
that discipline led him to pack sack lunches
for 35 years, even as many of his colleagues
lunched at the University Club.
Hodges might
have forgone some collegial fellowship, but
future students will gain more access to
higher education. The retired professor’s
frugality helped him sink a tidy sum into an
Individual Retirement Account, part of which
he has dedicated to a new scholarship fund.
The John H.
“Jack” Hodges Scholarship will be awarded
for the first time this year. The $1,000
annual award will go to undergraduates in
math who have financial need and are good
students.
Hodges had considered bequeathing the scholarship funds.
But, he observes, “Who knows how long anybody’s going to
last? I’d like to do it while I’m still around.”
There are not many scholarships for undergraduate
students of mathematics, Hodges observes. “My emphasis
in my career was on undergraduate affairs,” particularly
teaching, which Hodges did demonstrably well.
In 1968, he received the CU-student-initiated Teaching
recognition Award, previously won by such outstanding
faculty members as Reuben Zubrow of economics and Hazel
Barnes of philosophy.
Hodges also won the Teaching Excellence Award from the
Boulder Faculty Assembly in 1990. He was also honored in
1993 by the BFA for his service to the university. In
1992, he also received the Burton W. Jones Distinguished
Teaching Award, a regional teaching award given annually
by the Rocky Mountain Section of the Mathematical
Association of America.
Hodges’ path from Pennsylvania youth to university
professor was not pre-ordained. “As a kid, I was pretty
good at arithmetic and things of that sort,” Hodges
notes.
But at 18 years of age, Hodges found himself with three
obvious options: get drafted, work in the Steel mills or
join a special-training program in the military. He took
the special-training route in the Navy, which he recalls
as a “great time” and “a big adventure.”
After the Navy, Hodges used the GI Bill to attend
college. He earned his bachelor’s degree in three years
and went to graduate school at Duke University.
The day before classes began, the department chairman
assembled the grad students in a room. The chairman, a
“blunt guy” wielding an armload of books, “slapped a
book on an armchair and said, ‘Hodges, you’re an algebra
teacher.’”
“He was right. I loved it,” Hodges notes. “I was in
heaven, because I loved teaching, … and that’s been my
life.”
“In awarding scholarships, we would keep in mind Jack’s
particular interests and contributions to our
department’s educational mission,” says Eric Stade
professor and chair of the Department of Mathematics.
One of Hodges’ passions is “helping people get over the
fear of mathematics” and even helping them appreciate
the beauty and logic of math. As his career progressed,
Hodges focused his attention on prospective
elementary-school teachers.
Those enrolled in his course for prospective
schoolteachers were often older women who’d gotten a
degree in, say, English. “I was sympathetic to those
people,” he says.
That class was the “least prestigious course in the
department,” so there was no competition to teach it,
Hodges notes. But, “It was a course I loved.”
The course is called “The Spirit and Uses of
Mathematics” which Hodges likens to a
mathematics-appreciation course.
Hodges says it’s not adequate to concentrate on the
mathematics used before 1600. “So what I did was to take
very contemporary math and taught it at an intuitive
level,” he says. “This is something people don’t
normally get in a high-school mathematics course.”
To Hodges, mathematics is “an art, not a science.”
Stade notes that Hodges was “very passionate about and
successful in training many of our future teachers.”
Stade frequently teaches (and continually directs) the
course Hodges started.
Stade adds: “The math department is very excited about
and grateful for this new opportunity to recognize our
best and brightest undergraduates, especially
considering the constraints the present economy puts on
our own finances, and those of our students.”
Hodges and his wife, Jean, retired in 1995 and have
traveled extensively since, visiting Australia, New
Zealand, China, Turkey, Africa and Southeast Asia. The
couple is active in the group Parents, Families, &
Friends of Lesbians and Gays, a cause about which both
of them are passionate.
Meanwhile, Hodges reflects on his motivation to create a
scholarship. “I had the GI bill,” he notes. “It was a
blessing for our whole country. The GI bill changed the
character of education of the United States.
“I feel some desire to help carry that on for other
people.”
NEWS:
DECEMBER 2007
Hodges Enjoy Beautiful Costa Rica
View photos online
of Jack, Jean, Ben and Wayne's excursion to Costa Rica
in December 2007!
NEWS:
DECEMBER 2005
2005 Hodges-Nelson Family Reunion Photo
Visit our
Hodges Family Reunions
page to see a picture of the Hodges gang at the 2005
family reunion in Georgia.
NEWS:
AUGUST 2005
Jack and Jean Celebrate
50th In Style!
LONGMONT
- Jack and Jean Hodges celebrated their 50th
Anniversary at a party thrown by their children and
grandchildren on August 14, 2005. The festive
event was held at the Callahan House in Longmont,
Colorado, and was attended by over 100 close friends.
To enjoy some of the
pictures of this memorable event, please visit our
Anniversary Page.
NEWS:
JUNE 2003
Aloha
From The Hodges In Hawaii
KAUAI
- Jack, Jean, and Ben have just returned from a two
week vacation in the beautiful Hawaiian islands of
Kauai and Hawaii. After trekking through lava
fields and tropical gardens, we would like to share
some magical moments with our extended family.
Visit our Travel Photos page for just some of our beautiful
photographic moments.
NEWS:
FEBRUARY 2003
Jean
Receives The Prestigious Human Rights Campaign Paul
Hunter Award
DENVER
- The Human
Rights Campaign is pleased to announce this year's
Paul Hunter Award winner: Jean Hodges of Boulder.
Visit our online HRC
Dinner page to view photos and read
information about the event.
NEWS
AUGUST 2002
Hodges
Family Reunion A Rousing Success
GRAND LAKE - View
all of the photos from the Hodges/Nelson Family Reunion
in Grand Lake, Colorado by visiting the
Hodges Reunion Page.
Copyright ©2013 HodgePodgeGazette.com
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