Retired professor going strong at 90

link Vern Witten

ENMU Communication Services

Vern Witten, 90, who retired as an ENMU math professor in 1991 at age 67, has lived an adventurous life.

He recently stopped by the Monday Memo headquarters and reminisced about his first 90 years, which started with his 1924 birth in rural Daviess County, Missouri.

In the second grade he already knew his multiplication tables. In 1941 he graduated from Trenton High School in Missouri where he was “bused” to school in the back of a pickup for $3 per month.

Graduating from high school at 16, he was a 92-pound valedictorian.

Drafted into the Army in 1943, he was sent to Greenland where he worked in supplies.

He interacted with many soldiers coming and going from war zones. One memory that stands out “was a German ship that got frozen in and we captured it.”

After his Army career, he farmed in Missouri, making $4,000 one year off 30 acres of corn.

Mr. Witten, who “still has the blood pressure of a 20-year-old,” later farmed in Trenton, Mo., paying his hands $5 per day instead of the going rate of $3.

In 1951 he enrolled at Emporia State in Kansas, where seven Wittens have graduated.

He also attended Northwest Missouri State University, and received his master’s from the University of Illinois.

Mr. Witten also did fellowships at the University of Wyoming and Notre Dame. He taught in the Harvard-Newton Mathematics Teacher Training program in 1960.

He met his future wife, Ida Lou (now 90), when she was a secretary for a grain elevator company in Jamesport, Mo. He proposed to her within three months, and they now have three daughters (16 years apart), seven grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.

Eventually, Dr. I.V. Payne hired him to teach in the Carlsbad public schools. His first year Mr. Witten earned $4,100.

Later, he met Howard Melton, director of instruction in Carlsbad, N.M., who went on to a distinguished career at ENMU. This association resulted in him being hired at ENMU.

One of his junior high students was future astronaut Drew Gaffney, who later credited Mr. Witten with inspiring his career.

In 1964 Mr. Witten, who says he was in better shape at 65 than 45, became an assistant professor of math at ENMU, earning $7,500 his first year.

“I couldn’t have asked for a better place to teach than Eastern,” said Mr. Witten.

One interested concept he discussed during his visit with the Monday Memo is his “mathematical proof of God.” Although far too complex to summarize, Mr. Witten said, “Mathematics had a great impact on my religious beliefs. In math you start out with an undefined term, then make some assumptions. You never know if the assumptions are correct unless you get a contradiction. The whole concept is based on your faith in the system.”