YCGL - October 3, 2022 - Jay and Kathy

What can I say about Jay and Kathy Puckett?  Jay and I have been friends since 1979.  I had been teaching at Colorado State University for a year while I was working on my Ph.D., and they put Jay in my office so he could get some pointers from a guy with more experience.  Well, in two or three weeks, I realized he was a more creative teacher than I was.  I don't remember whether it was a semester or a year before he escaped my office (one of the few people to actually make it out alive).  

Sally and I moved up to Laramie in 1981 while I still had two years to work on my Ph.D.  I finished in 1983, as did Jay.  One of our senior structures professors announced his retirement and I called Jay to tell him to apply for the position, which he did.  We worked together for the next 32 years.  He's been a friend, a mentor, my department head, a booster.  He encouraged me to go into the teaching and student path at which I was successful.  He has supported me in many ways I don't even know about.  I don't believe in all that time that we have ever had a cross word.  I've never said it him, but I have always considered him to be the younger brother I could look up to.  

But even more than our careers, our families have meshed together.  Erik was born in 1981, Sarah a year and four days later.  Liz and then Kerri and later Amy.  Kathy was our Lamaze teacher when Liz was born.  Kathy and Sally coordinated with several other moms and formed a play group that lasted for years.  Sally and I were the girls' godparents.  When the kids had crises, we each were the other set of parents they could turn to.  When Erik and Sarah graduated from high school, we rented a compound in Cozumel, and Jay and I were scuba buddies.  Kerri was my advisee as an undergraduate and was my ASCE president.  I helped Sarah in writing long poems, which she has written some great ones.  

I wrote in the first blog about Kathy's dad, Fred Hawley and how he was an inspiration to me to travel.  In fact, the name of the blog "You Can't Get Lost" came from Fred because "you can't get lost if you don't know where you are going!"  

We kind of parted ways, physically, when we both retired in 2015.  Jay went on to become the director of the Architectural and Construction Engineering program at the University of Nebraska.  One program was in Lincoln and the other in Omaha.  He was very successful in advancing that program and even though he "retired" this past year, he still is on part salary because he has initiated so many initiatives there.  

They bought their first cabin around Winter Park, CO maybe 2005 or 6.  They purchased another one in 2014 or 15 to be their retirement home in Tabernash, CO, next to Frazer, often the coldest spot in the country.  The "cabin" is really spectacular, looking out over their playground, the mountains of Grand County.  They love to ski (especially cross country), mountain bike, hike, fish.  They just bought a camping trailer, being tenter's all this time.  

Being with Jay and Kathy is not just being with friends, its being with another part of my family.