My father taught at what is now UAFS for 25 years. When he started, it was Fort Smith Junior College, and changed to Westark a while before my two years there. About the time they joined the University system, they began offering some four-year degrees in conjunction with other schools. (My older son got his masters there, but through ASU.) Then gradually they phased in their own self-contained four year curriculum. The campus has been growing by leaps and bounds.

Their basketball facility reminds me a lot of ours, only not quite a big and without the upper deck. They had a couple of national championships while in juco. The legendary Gayle Kaundart was there when they won on the boy's side, and the equally legendary Louis Whorton is still there on the girls' side. Tweaky asked him one time how they would have compared with the top D1 girls programs in the country the year they won the juco title, and he said he thought they would have been right in there with the best of them.

Kaundart moved to Westark from FS Northside the year after they won the state championship and brought essentially his whole team with him. They became an immediate powerhouse. Incidentally, my parents went to school at C of O in Clarksville (now U of O) at the same time as Kaundart.

Tweaky and I try to take my father to a U of O game each year. At least through last season he has felt up to it, although he does not negotiate their bleachers very well. We went to homecoming last year. I suspect he was the oldest alumnus there (88).