Gene Sprechini, 1952--2023, was one of my closest friends.  He died last week, after a painful illness.  He leaves behind a wonderful family: a loving and beautiful wife, at least two sisters, and brothers, and nephews and nieces, and a score of grateful and adoring friends and students.

Before I was hired at Lycoming College, in Williamsport Pennsylvania, I had come up for an interview, and met some of the faculty.  My daughter (who was just six) was pleased with the place, because--as she said--"They have a mall!!"  (The mall is now in extreme decline, and has been bought by a real estate developer.  Where would we be without them?)  As we were preparing to leave, the chair of the department was talking to me, and was saying he wished that we could stay longer.  I asked why.  Because, he said, there was a colleague he wanted me to meet, namely a new hire from the previous year, called Gene Sprechini, who had gone out of town for some reason--meet with his advisor, or for a family event.  I wondered what could be so important about meeting someone, since I had met the most senior faculty already.  It wasn't until a year or so after I had been teaching here that I got to know Gene, because his area was statistics, and my area was analysis (OK, calculus, and that sort of thing), and I had been stashed on the third floor with the English department, while Gene was on the first floor with all the other math guys--there were only guys in our department back then.

When I returned the following year, Gene helped me find a place to stay, my temporary home having been reclaimed by the music professor who had let us stay for a year while he was on sabbatical.  It was in those days that I discovered how funny Gene was.  In addition, he was intimately knowledgeable about all matters having to do with popular culture of the fifties, sixties and seventies: TV, radio, most of which I had gotten familiar with through reruns.  Shortly after, while I was getting my feet wet teaching nurses computer science (don't ask), it became necessary for Gene to take up some analysis, such as Calculus 2, and Calculus 3.  There must have been some complaints about my teaching these courses; in retrospect, I was probably being too hard on our students.

Once Gene moved into teaching calculus, he wanted to bounce some of his ideas off me, and we got very close.  Then he took up the chairmanship, and he could take a greater control over what he taught, and soon we were making changes in the middle-level curriculum, to bring it in line with the degree of difficulty that was tolerable to our students.  Gradually, all of us in the department were teaching a huge variety of courses, for various reasons, and I got the impression that most of us were happy, eventually, with our course-loads.

Gene was a wonderful guy, loved alike by faculty and students.  I don't have an insight for why, but he just was.  He was the one to whom anyone would go if there was a problem, and he would discover a creative solution to it.  The faculty in our department were probably the most creative problem-solvers in the nation, and I hope our graduates realize just how lucky they are to have known Gene, and David, and Charlie, and Eileen; and Chris and Jason, and Andrew.  Some of our beloved faculty have left: Ed Wallace, Melissa Sutherland, and Joanne Schweinsberg.

Gene's passing is a huge blow to many; he was a great resource for the school, and for many of his colleagues, and certainly for his students.  His departure, more than the departure of anyone else, be it through retirement or through death, is likely to change the nature of the school itself, and certainly the nature of the mathematics major; and the school will have to work very hard to recover.  It has managed to bounce back from the loss of Charlie Getchell, and David Haley, and it will bounce back from this loss.  But it will be painful.

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Well, Kate and I just got back from the funeral service for Gene.  After he married, he and his wife Stacie began to attend an evangelical church, and that was where the funeral service was held.  A little into the service, we found ourselves singing a hymn, whose refrain was

Trust and obey,

For there's no other way,

To be happy in Jesus

But to trust and obey.

This remarkable hymn managed to encapsulate all that I find objectionable in Christianity as it is practiced in the US: if you want to be happy with Jesus, you have to switch off the critical parts of your brain.

Much of the congregation consisted of Gene's colleagues, who were college professors.  Some of them, doubtless, are comfortable with Trusting and Obeying, but higher education for many years has been engaged in a battle to fight against all sorts of dogma, which is why the conservatives and the GOP is so hell-bent on getting rid of "wokeness", one aspect of which is not Trusting and Obeying.  But is there truly no other way?

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