More Than 30 Years Have Passed and Langley Continues to Liven Up UAM's Library

Editor-in-Chief

Photo by Linna Jones

Robert Langley

   MONTICELLO  - His co-workers at the Fred J. Taylor Library at the University of Arkansas at Monticello describe him as dependable, concientious, dedicated and kind. 

   Robert Langley works as part-time Circulation Assistant for library, but once worked as its Circulation Manager from 1980-1994.  

   Many of his co-workers said when Langley says he is going to be somewhere, he will be there.

   Kathy Davis said she could only think good things about Langley. She said he has been really great to work with and made her feel at home when she was hired. Davis, who works as an access services and reference librarian, started working with Langley in 2005 and said he does not miss a day.

   Annette Vincent, circulations manager and library supervisor, described his character as being a people person, a person who can get along with everybody and can hold a conversation with anybody.

   “Dependable, he’s very dependable. He comes in and works every Saturday. It’s hard to find someone to work on Saturday,” she said. “We definitely need a lot more workers like him. He has a wonderful work ethic.”

   Sandra Campbell, director at the library, started working in January 1984 as a Reference librarian and always remembers working with Langley.

  “(Langley) was always so dedicated and very concientious,” Campbell said. “I just admired his dedication.”

    She said Langley was always interested in functions and goals of the library. 

His College Career

   Langley started teaching at Arkansas A&M in 1962. He learned of the job from the funeral home director in Glenwood. Before coming to Arkansas A&M, Langley worked at a Junior High School in Pottersville, Mo.

   He talked to Claude Babin, the president of the college, and Kermit Moss, the head of the Business Department, and he got the job. He taught economics and typing classes. Once he taught a class he never had ... Comparative Economics.

   “When I taught that I never have had comparative economics, but it wasn’t like it is nowadays,” he said. “You could teach courses you hadn’t had before, but nowaday it would be difficult for you to do. You just had to study hard enough to keep ahead of the students.”

   He said he probably studied harder than some of the students did.

   He taught in the business department for 18 years before retiring from teaching and transferring to the library in 1980.  He worked at the library 14 years before retiring in 1994.

   “I was on 10 ½ months employment period, so when I came over here they continued to let me work 10 ½ months and I was off the payroll for month and a half,” Langley said.

  As circulation manager, he kept time on when students worked and was in charge of making sure the vans picked up students who lived in the country.

   Helen Guenter, Associate Librarian for Serials and Reference, started working in the library in 1982 in serials and references. She has worked with Langley for 28 years. In the early 1980s, Langley took one to two classes a semester at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Even if Langley was not doing the job, he knew where things were located.

   When Langley retired in 1994, he had worked 32 years on staff at the University of Arkansas at Monticello and eight years teaching secondary education. He worked a total of 40 years and then worked part-time at the library after retiring.

   Mary Heady, Special Collections and Reference librarian, said Langley has been apart of the library for many years.  She described him as reliable, loyal, down-to-earth and an avid UAM fan. She said he goes to many of the UAM basketball games. She said he was also the expert on security.

   While working at the library, Langley also worked at the Piggly Wiggly. When the fall semester began, the manager of the Monticello store asked Langley to work part-time. Langley worked at the library and part time for the business. He worked as the night manager for the Piggly Wiggly for 23 years.

Higher Education

   He graduated from Henderson University in the spring of 1951 with a Bachelor's of Science in Education degree. He taught bookkeeping, shorthand and typing.

   After earning his Bachelor’s, he went up to Peabody College (now Vanderbilt University), thinking about starting school 1952.  

   He came back home and a woman from the draft board called him wondering what he was going to do. He told her he was planning on starting graduate school at Peabody College to work on his Master’s that fall. The woman deferred him to go on and get his Master’s degree instead of drafting him.

  “I decided I wasn’t going to start in ’52; if they drafted me, they just draft me,” he said.

  He earned his Master’s degree at Peabody College, where he studied school administration.  He also earned a lifetime superintendent certificate from the State of Missouri. He received the certificate when he earned his degree.

Secondary Education

   With a degree in School Administration, a person can either be a principal or a school superintendent. He worked in both positions during the time he worked in secondary education.

   He first worked as a principle at Dirks School District.  He worked as a classroom teacher his first year at Dirks from 1954-1955. He continued teaching his second year, but also had the responsibility of principal over all 12 grades from 1955-1956. He taught shorthand, bookkeeping and typing.

   Langley used shorthand while he served in the Korean War and in his graduate classes.

   “It's just where you use symbols to write, in fact I used shorthand in one of my graduate courses,” he said. “(The) teacher walked by and asked me if I could read that chicken scratch he called it. (I) told him ‘sure, I could read it.’”

   Langley married Ruth Shelton Langley March 30, 1956. They met when Langley worked as a principal and she was a teacher at Dirks. He said the superintendent did not let them off for a short honeymoon to Little Rock.  

   He moved to Kirby to work as a superintendent at the Kirby School District from 1956-1958.  He changed schools, because being a superintendent paid more and for the administrative experience.

   In this position, he supervised teachers and handled disciplinary problems and sometimes he had to drive a school bus.

   “We had half a dozen buses, but one was a real long bus,” he said. “I have driven it.”

   As a superintendent, he taught American Government and occasionally filled in when a teacher could not be there.

   He worked as a principal of the junior high for grades seven through nine at Portersville, Mo. for four years from 1958-1962. 

Military Service

   During the Korean War, he worked for intelligence as typing exempts and watching the prisoners when their families came to visit. He was stationed at an anti-communist prisoner of war camp.

   He said the camp housed South Koreans who wanted to fight the communists. The camp kept communist prisoners on Koje-do Island, a little island off the coast of Buson, South Korea.

  Part of his job required monitoring visitation of a prisoner and their guest. He said sometimes the loved ones who come to visit the prisoners became very emotional.

   They closed the camp around 1953-1954. Langley went to Korea in January 1953, served 16 months and returned home May 1954. He was discharged for active duty, but remained in the inactive reserves for eight years or more before he was discharged.

Returning Home

  He traveled to and from Korea in a troop ship. He described the big ship’s length as from the front door of the library to the back and maybe longer.

  He laughed as he recalled the ship being hit by a Chinese LST, a flat sailing vessel.

   “Coming back after we left Buson, early the next morning, a Chinese LST, I could see it ... I was out on the deck and I could see it looked like it was going to hit our ship and it did. I turned my head and I didn’t want to watch it hit it.” Langley said laughing. “It shook it and knocked a big whole in it and it sounded the alarm. We went down and got our life jackets and then they told us it wasn’t going to sink.”

   “I could see the Chinese people running on the LST and I knew it looked like it was going to run into us and sure enough they did. (It) made a kind of a noise and shook the ship, but the ship’s so big it didn’t shake it too much,” he added. 

  The ship went to Japan to be repaired before they continued on to the United States.

   Langley told a story about the only wound he received while serving in the military. When soldiers return, they received physicals. He said he was doing pretty well until he looked up and saw blood streaming down another soldier’s arm. The next thing he knew, the medical staff was picking him up off the floor. He fainted. The only wound received while he served, he received at home.

 Home Life

   Guenter described Langley as active in the community and in church. Guenter and Langley both attend First United Methodist Church in Monticello.  Guenter said Langley also takes leadership roles, especially in church.

   According to Guenter, Langley participates in a men’s coffee group. The group comprises of mostly retired men who like to get together, drink coffee, talk about politics and share funny stories.

   Guenter described the group as a caring for each other. If one member is sick, they visit and they remember each others birthdays.

   Langley was also a member of “Prop Up” an acronym for Poor, Retired, Old, Pooped University Professors. The small group comprised  of retired UAM professors who met for fellowship and to share old times together.  The group had nothing to do with the university, but met out of friendship. First they met from time to time and then decided to meet regularly. Members of the group included Claude Babin, the first Chancellor of UAM, Elwood Shade and Tim Ku.

   Langley laughed and smiled as he talked about his past and memories. Langley was asked if he would work only part-time by the director of the library in the 1990s.

   “I’m still working part time,” he said