How Gary Hepler changed my life (for the better)

How Gary Hepler Changed My Life

Today is the memorial for Gary Hepler, one of my high school science teachers.  Unfortunately, I was unable to attend, so here's the comments I would have made, had I been there.

If I were asked “who were your most influential teachers?”, there is no question that Gary Hepler is right up there at the top of the list.  I see by reading the comments of others that I’m not the only one who feels that way. And I’m glad for my daughters that they had science teachers in the same mold, because in these times of populist anti-science, teachers like Gary make the difference – science is fun and useful, even if you’re not going to have a career in science, here’s just a few recollections of how Gary Hepler was an inspiring teacher, and things that he did affect me to this day.

Geology Class

My summer school class before 9^th grade was Gary’s geology class at Poway High.  I think anyone who took those classes can fairly say they were life changing, and probably never to be repeated.  The geology was fun (a lifetime of camping in Yosemite helps create that interest), the field trips were memorable, especially that week long odyssey up to Yosemite and back. And an odyssey it truly was, because we went back and forth along our path never directly to our eventual destination – oh, we need to make a side trip to see this, or, we need to go back here to camp, or, I think this road is a shortcut (on the map, not in real life). 

To this day, I wind up using the knowledge I gained in that class and subsequently in his other classes.  I remember going down to a lecture at San Diego State to hear about this new “plate tectonics” theory that was revolutionizing the science. I’ve commented to my kids (when they would tolerate it) about how the oil rigs in the Santa Barbara channel follow the Ventura anticline.  When I’ve traveled around the world, I’m always paying attention to the geology, and the fascinating history behind the development of the science. This was all inspired by Gary’s class – sure I had a casual interest in geology before, but the idea of going somewhere just because it was geologically interesting is something that has stuck with me through the years.

I stare out the window on plane flights, looking at the geology below, and when I got my pilots license, I used to fly out over the desert and see the geological features, just like in Shelton’s Geology Illustrated, which Gary showed us in class.

Climbing

Gary was probably the reason I started rock climbing.  On the (in)famous geology field trips and in slide shows in class, he showed what fun it was.  That copy of Galen Rowell’s The Vertical World of Yosemite (out of print now) was inspirational: who would have known that eventually I’d take climbing lessons from someone whose picture is in that book. I was already into camping and backpacking – our family made regular trips to Tuolumne Meadows, Boy Scout Troop 680 was hardcore into backpacking, but climbing was something different. 

I never got that good (5.7 on a good day) – it takes serious time and pain to get good, and other things seemed to get in the way. I viewed climbing as a way to get to places you couldn’t otherwise get to, and I think that was part of Gary’s motivation too: we sure saw lots of pictures of mountain top registers and Gary and climbing partners standing on peaks.  I think he secretly longed to outdo Norman Clyde – who is probably the ultimate peak bagger.

I still have a fondness for climbing – particularly trad climbing. Seeing the pictures of Gary using goldline really takes me back. I still have all my gear from 40 years ago. It probably hasn’t been used in 10 years and I doubt the EBs still fit, but when my kids were born, they got rope slings to teeth on, web slings with hexcentrics and stoppers to play with, and I built a climbing wall in the back yard.

Physics & Science classes

I had Gary for Physics in 9^th grade and Chemistry in 10th (I think.. that was long ago, and I'm not going to hunt for my HS transcript).  There’s a lot of lessons learned in class beyond the obvious F=ma. One that sticks in my mind is the lab with the paper tape falling through the modified doorbell which makes dots at regular intervals.  You measure the spacing of the dots (pentaticks, actually), turn that into velocity and, in theory, calculate the acceleration due to gravity.   We did the lab, but the data seemed a bit wonky, so using my math skills, I built a mathematical model of the data to “correct the errors” – but when my data was a little too good, compared to everyone else’s, I got the public lecture on the evils of dry labbing.  Of course, today I make my living, in part, building computer models of physical phenomena, so maybe that experience wasn’t all to the bad – I do make sure, though, that the model outputs are labeled as such.

All through high school, Gary always had extra projects for us science oriented students to do: Whether helping prep for labs, building projects, or otherwise, it was always fun – and what we did at school was almost certainly safer than the experiments we did at home.  I was already interesting in science and engineering, but Gary (and the rest of the science department as well) kept that interest alive, to the point where it’s what I’ve done for pretty much my entire life.

Jim Lux, Gary’s student from 1973-1977