Alva Review-Courier -

In the late ‘60s, mass enrollment at Northwestern Oklahoma State College was done by having all its university professors grouped by discipline in the Student Center Ballroom. Then they were to personally sign students into their classes, ostensibly on a first come basis. Students enrolled according to the first letter of their last name, and the letters were rotated so a person named Adams wouldn’t always get to enroll first.

The enrollment process started on a Monday, took three full days, and student classes started on Thursday. Students soon spread the word that when the first letter of their last name meant that they could enroll early, if they wanted to have a teacher like Mr. Floyd Sibley (“Sib”), they didn’t have any time to waste.

During enrollment, when classes had reached their maximum enrollment limit of students, a loudspeaker announcement would be made that Dr. Soandso’s class of Whatever was filled, and future enrollees needed to find a different class. (Remember that this time period was BC – Before Computers – or cell phones for that matter.)

It normally took a full day or two for individual classes to fill up. But in the 20-plus years of knowing and associating with Dr. Vahdat, I don’t ever remember ANY of his classes being filled. However, virtually all of Sib’s classes filled within an hour or two – many within minutes of the opening bell. Being new at Northwestern, and having no idea as to how a teacher’s classes could fill so rapidly, I decided I had to meet this Mr. Sibley.

When I walked back to his table, I found a pleasant grey-haired, bearded man who had a fist full of university enrollment forms, but also had several legal sized papers before him with student names on them. Some of the papers had headings of “Save for Students” at the top of them, and others had “Standby” for a heading. In this manner Sib could reserve a slot for a student named “Zook” when “Adams” was scheduled to enroll first. I gained additional knowledge about Sib from Steven “Grumpy” Shrock, long before Steve founded the Grumpy’s pizza chain.

(In its hay day, I spent many a Friday night at Grumpys pizza restaurant in Alva, trying to get the best Julie Farris (now Sawyer) of the Newsgram in Trivial Pursuit. Though I frequently partnered up with Dr. Keith Sawyer, Grumpy, and/or Dick Vogel, Julie usually came out on top and (in a very unsportsmanlike manner) let everyone within earshot know it. Julie now lives in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, is married to Keith, has her doctorate in statistics, teaches at Northeastern, and is consultant to the state board of regents.)

At the time, Grumpy was a Northwestern undergrad renting a basement apartment below the Sibley home. The apartment was not air conditioned, and Grumpy often had his windows open when Sib was above making out his mid-term or semester grades. Sib’s wife recorded the grades on a typewriter, as Sib orally dictated for each student. They developed a distinct rhythm that would go much like the following: [Sib] “Adams – A,” and this would be followed by Mrs. Sibley hitting a key on the typewriter – “clack;” [Sib] “Barnes – B,” “clack;” [Sib] “Curtis – A,” “clack;” and so on.

Grumpy said he was usually studying when the Sibleys prepared report cards, and even used to tap out the Sibleys’ “dictating and typing” rhythm with his fingers. Except one day when Sib was dictating grades, and said “Jones” – “F,” Grumpy almost went into shock, because most of Sib’s students received an A or B for a class. And to his knowledge, no one had ever received less than a C grade.

It must have been quite a shock to Mrs. Sibley too, because Grumpy said when Sib said “F”, it was followed by a pause of several minutes. It was quite possibly a case of a student enrolling in the class, never attending it, and never dropping the class. Knowing Sib, however, I’d bet that he would have changed the final grade to a “WP” (withdrawn passing) if the student ever made any effort to contact him. (These events took place before student evaluations came into wider use, and the spread of so called grade inflation.)

I forget exactly when Sib retired, but on orientation day in the last year of his teaching at Northwestern, the car in which he commuted with other professors from Kiowa, Kansas, to Alva pulled into the Sibley driveway. (In the interim the Sibleys had moved.) The day was going to be filled with a series of organizational meetings consisting of the entire faculty in a group meeting, followed by division meetings, and lastly came departmental meetings – things Sib had done dozens of times before.

He had just gotten into the car, when Mrs. Sibley came running out of the house holding up a small item, shouting, “Hey Floyd, you forgot your hearing aid!” Sib simply replied, “No I didn’t.”