Albert Einstein once said, “It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.”

And I would be remiss if I didn’t pause to honor one of the supreme artists of my education, Mr. Richard Brown. He was my high school English teacher at Otto-Eldred. He passed away Tuesday at the age of 85.

I vividly recall, some 30 years later, the first day of class with him. I come from a big family, and he’d had all of my siblings before me. I sat in the back row with a friend, waiting for class to start. The bell rang and he swept in, slamming the door behind him. With a look of faint displeasure on his face, he walked to his desk and quietly looked around.

“Miss Whiteman,” he said, calling on me. “What does the sign above the blackboard say?”

I couldn’t quite see if from where I was sitting, and I meekly told him so.

“Come forward to the front row,” he said loudly — his voice had some power, and often could be heard echoing down the third-floor hallway. Looking at me over his glasses, he said, “Now can you read it?”

“It says ‘success is a journey, not a destination,’” I replied quietly.

“And your journey starts in the front row, right now,” he said. So I moved my books to my new seat and class began — with everyone else pretty glad that he didn’t know who they were on that first day. It was one year of instruction, but a lifetime of learning.

Because Mr. Brown was one of those teachers who would see you in the store 20 years after high school and still remember you. He’d remember a test you hadn’t done well on, or an assignment he’d given that you had done to his satisfaction.

And with my job — with my name attached to every story that I wrote — he’d remember the all-too-public mistakes. “Marcie,” he’d say, now that I was out of high school, married and no longer Miss Whiteman, “in that last city council story, you had a problem with subject and verb agreement.”

Or my all-time favorite, a predictive text error in a photo caption that changed the “Consecration” part of the Mass to “Concentration” and his subsequent letter to me, circling the mistake in red pen. I laughed until I had tears rolling down my face at that. As soon as I saw that red pen, I was right back in high school.

What can I say to eulogize a man like Mr. Brown, or to explain the impact of him and his teaching on my life? I’ll share some of his words that he gave to his students.

Here is a poem he had written for my graduating class, called “dedicated to the class of ‘91.”

“When I had you in my last class

I thought the year would never pass;

But pass it did, and I felt glad

You didn’t seem to feel so bad.

Now three long years have flown on by;

I’ll bet at times you said, ‘Why try?’

It’s time to end the final year

Perhaps you’ll shed a little tear.

Later on you’ll meditate

To 87-88;

And then recall with a big frown

That big stern fellow, Mr. Brown.”

Yes, there have been some tears, but in mourning for a teacher who showed his students that being stern, exacting and oftentimes loud didn’t mean he didn’t care. In fact, it was just the opposite.

Rest in peace Mr. Brown, knowing that you accomplished the goal of great teachers everywhere — cultivating minds and touching hearts.

(Schellhammer is the Era’s Associate Editor, and a 1991 graduate of Otto-Eldred High School.)