Harper founding faculty member dies

Colleagues from their days as founding faculty members at Harper College remember Robert Powell as the quintessential college professor who was like a father figure to the young educators.

As Powell's longtime friend and founding faculty member Thomas McCabe looked through a 1967 Harper College yearbook Sunday night, the memories of growing the college with Powell from its start with about 1,100 students in Elk Grove High School flooded back to him.

“I would have to call him an intellectual giant. In the early years he was a natural,” McCabe said. “There's no question he was the leader of the pack.”

Powell died at 92 Wednesday, about 20 years after retiring from the college where he taught English, was president of the faculty senate and later dean of the College of Liberal Arts.

“His students would come back and say he was the best teacher they ever had,” McCabe said. “He was the quintessential college professor. When you think of a professor you think of Bob Powell.”

Powell, the youngest of 10 children, was born in Columbia, Mo. in 1919, but spent most of his youth in New Orleans where he studied English at Louisiana State University before fighting in Europe during World War II. He later studied at Northwestern University and began his teaching career at Roosevelt and Wright Universities.

“He knew a lot of the southern authors,” McCabe said. “He was very interesting. You'd love to sit down and talk to him. He could spin yarns about the South and his background,”

Outside the classroom, Powell was an avid golfer who was known to be deceivingly good when there was money on the line.

“There were some legends about him,” McCabe joked. “He would pose to be not as good as he really was.”

A memorial service will be held at Harper College, Room A238 at 11 a.m. on Aug. 26 after which Robert Powell and his wife, Loraine, will be interred together at Arlington National Cemetery,

“He was just a character, there was never a dull moment,” McCabe said. “He always had a story to tell.”

Powell is survived by his four daughters: Maria, Pia, Julie and Amy.