WHEN I was making my way through Junior High and High School in 1960s Lufkin, one of my favorite teachers was ninth grade Science teacher Wilton Killam. I was a good student, attentive and not given to misconduct in his class, so Mr. Killam appreciated those qualities.

He was also the tennis coach, and I played tennis for the Junior High School team, such as it was. My doubles partner was Arthur Nelson, son of noted Junior High algebra teacher, Mrs. Nelson. She was a favorite of both my older sister and me.

Mr. Killam was an intense teacher. He had passion about Science, and not a lot of patience for students who did not see the relevance of science. He would occasionally get this look on his face that surely said “how can you be so clueless?” He never looked at me that way, but he would definitely look that way at others, who certainly lacked the motivation to pay attention.

MR. KILLAM would occasionally lose his patience for some of the rebellious misconduct of a male student, and would express his displeasure by applying a grip to the shoulder of the misbehaving juvenile offender. The rest of the class took great glee when the measured professor would grit his teeth and through them say “would you like to go to the principal’s office?” while applying the Killam death grip to their shoulder. I always got a huge kick out of such occasions, as did many of my classmates. It wasn’t really severe, more of a physical exclamation point.

Mr. Killam mainly coached the boys’ high school tennis team, and in those years, Lufkin had a tennis doubles team that was simply the best in the state: Jan Marshall and Skip McBride. The problem was they had no one in Lufkin to regularly hit balls with, so Mr. Killam recruited me to be his doubles partner against Marshall and McBride, who beat up on us every time we hit against them. We weren’t much better competition than a back board, but we were live humans on the other side occasionally getting a ball back.

Mr. Killam and I would often have to resort to lobbing shots over whichever of our opponents was at the net. Of course that meant the other opponent would drop back and hit an overhead slam, whizzing it past us on return volley. When Jan Marshall played back, you could count on him leaning back and making a perfectly timed overhead slam that would be on target and too fast to return. I don’t know that I literally cringed, but inside my head, I was definitely cringing.

JAN AND SKIP were great tennis players, and nothing improves your game like playing top talent. Whatever I learned in tennis was largely due to having Wilton Killam as a coach, and being his doubles partner and co-punching bag to Jan Marshall and Skip McBride.

Teachers often wonder if their efforts are really influencing the young people they teach in our schools. I can attest that they do. Wilton Killam was one such teacher, and his enthusiasm for science, for tennis, and for life influenced me as an adolescent. He made an impact on my life with his tenacious attitude about science and tennis.

© 2009, Pappy Moore, All Rights Reserved.

Pappy Moore is a humorist, a native son of East Texas who still makes the piney woods his home.

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