Thank You, Kind Sir!

Editor: 

The Fall 2023 issue of Sooner Magazine was absolutely beautiful. I am a longtime publisher, printer and writer who commends you on a very well-put-together issue. I particularly enjoyed the article, "Tour of Duty Completed."

The University of Oklahoma is fortunate to have such a benchmark publication. 

I congratulate you on the standards you have set for this magazine and your entire team for refusing to settle for anything less.

Dave Hail II

Broken Arrow, Okla.

Remembering Duane Roller

Editor:

Congrats to Dr. Kenneth Taylor for a well-written tribute to Dr. Duane Roller. I had the good fortune of being one of his students in the fall of 1971, along with 15 others. We were all secondary school science instructors from across the U.S. attending OU on competitive Academic Year Institute grants from the National Science Foundation. It was quite an experience, wishbone offense and all. And the most memorable of our courses was learning about and seeing the History of Science Collections. We even got to handle some of the rarities.

I recall Dr. Roller telling us how astonished scholars from big-name universities were that OU, a place then known primarily for football and geology, had such an extensive collection. I also recall him telling us that when you read about esoteric science occurring ages ago, something was amiss and to be skeptical. Good advice. He mentioned articles like those attempting to explain Egyptian pyramid construction/alignment by extraterrestrial assistance. Interestingly, those proposals and others continue to this day, enhanced by Hollywood and the Internet. 

We received our MNS (Master of Natural Science) degrees the following spring. Rather than returning like the others to our teaching positions, I stayed on for geology thanks, in part, to him. He was truly dedicated to science and to that ongoing collection. God bless him.

Richard R. Donofrio

'77 Ph.D. Geology

Danbury, Conn.

Editor:

One of my best friends in the University School was Duane W. Roller (Ph.D. Harvard, ’71), son of Dr. Duane H.D. and Marjorie Roller. When we were in 5th or 6th grade (1957-59), Dr. Roller introduced our classes to the history of science. He brought to our classroom original copies of Newton’s Principia and some work of Galileo’s from the DeGolyer Collection. On car trips to Platt National Park, he exposed four of us to the relationships of time, distance and velocity. How blessed we were to have received his augmentation of our schooling!

Very truly yours,

Timothy L. Bratton, Ph.D.

Parker, Texas