[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 19 (Wednesday, February 15, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E166-E167]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         TRIBUTE TO ROBERT WEBB

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR.

                              of tennessee

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, February 15, 2006

  Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, I would like to call your attention to the 
life and death of a great Tennessean.
  Mr. Robert Webb accomplished more good for the people of Southeast 
Tennessee than many others of greater fame.
  Robert Webb was born in Fort Sanders, Tennessee, in 1919. On December 
22nd of 2005, he passed away at the age of 86 years. His life's work 
was spent nurturing Knoxville's educational needs.
  Mr. Webb graduated from the renowned Bell Buckle, Tennessee, Webb 
School founded by his grandfather and former Senator, Robert ``Old 
Sawney'' Webb, before earning his bachelor's and master's degree from 
my alma mater, the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. Between 
degrees, he served our Country admirably in WWII.
  After brief teaching stints at the Bell Buckle School and the Webb 
School of Claremont, California, Mr. Webb founded Knoxville's Webb 
School in 1955.
  The school started with four boys in the basement of Sequoyah Hills 
Presbyterian Church. Shortly thereafter, Webb added a Girls' School.
  The School stood at the forefront of educational equality when it 
declared an open-door policy in 1965. Mr. Webb followed this 
pronouncement with a then-controversial speech in favor of racial 
integration made to a convention of Southern private-school leaders.
  Despite criticism, Mr. Webb persevered to make Knoxville's Webb 
School one of Tennessee's finest private educational institutions. It 
currently enrolls over 1,000 students in kindergarten through 12th 
grade, and all members of its 2005 graduating class were accepted into 
college.
  It is significant to note that Robert Webb chose the following motto 
for his school: ``Leaders, Not Men.'' This is a telling statement of 
how he approached service to the community and the Nation, with a 
willingness to blaze difficult trails so that others could follow.
  Throughout his later years, Mr. Webb remained active in the 
community, leading the establishment of the Museum of East Tennessee 
History, and fundraising for the historic Bijou Theatre in Knoxville.
  It is clear that his contributions to the legacy of private education 
in the South, and the cultural edification of Knoxville, will not soon 
be forgotten.
  On behalf of the 2nd Congressional District of Tennessee, I express 
heartfelt condolences for the Webb Family, and great appreciation for 
the life work of Robert Webb.
  I call to the attention of the readers of the Congressional Record an 
article written by Judge Bill Swann in the Knoxville News Sentinel that 
accompanies these remarks.

                   [From the Knoxville News Sentinel]

                  Robert Webb: Great Teachers Live On

                            (By Bill Swann)

       I remember the wonder with which Jerome Taylor and I 
     grasped--it was September 1956, the first week in Mr. Webb's 
     Latin class, my first week at Webb School--that you could 
     actually say a thing some other way than English. It was a 
     transforming moment.
       There were a lot of those in my four years at Webb. Some of 
     them were ``Aha'' moments, like that encounter with my first 
     foreign language. Some of them were fill-the-backpack 
     moments--times you knew you were loading up with information 
     you would always need and use. Some of them were character 
     moments--times when I was a good citizen or a poor citizen 
     and learned the consequences. Coach Sharp had a lot to do 
     with those.
       I can still remember the wonder with which I realized that 
     I had landed at a school

[[Page E167]]

     where learning was an unquestioned good, where there was no 
     such thing as ``geekiness,'' when I realized that all of us 
     were there because we wanted to learn.
       There were 16 of us in the class of 1960. I can name them 
     all, fondly and with pride: Jim Hart, LeClair Greenblatt, 
     Clark Smeltzer, ``E.R'' Boles, David Creekmore, Hugh Faust, 
     Jim Bradley, Doug Newton, Chip Osborn, Sam Colville, Peter 
     Krapf, Ed McCampbell. Sterling Shuttleworth, Kit Ewing. Jeff 
     Goodson and me. Yes. ``me,'' direct object of the verb ``to 
     name'' in the previous sentence. Thank you, Miss Freeman.
       Fondly, because of the friendships, successes, 
     embarrassments, mistakes, follies and secrets. With pride, 
     because of our progress in four years to a Webb-shaped 
     maturity. There were also moments of grace: Jeff Goodson 
     teaching me to tie a bow tie; it took Jeff three days, but it 
     stuck Sam Colville teaching me to drive straight shift, in 
     his own creampuff '55 Chevy with three on the column. It took 
     him all track season, driving from the new campus to Fulton 
     High School. Coach Sharp had gotten us practice privileges at 
     Fulton. The new campus on Cedar Bluff Road didn't have a 
     track; it barely had a football field.
       By now we have read the obituaries, the newspaper articles, 
     the tributes. All the talk about Robert Webb in the 
     community, Bob Webb the force for social good.
       For me and for many of us, there is no Robert Webb, no Bob 
     Webb. There is only the great and fine man we called and 
     always will call ``Mr. Webb.'' He limped into our lives in 
     the basement of Sequoyah Hills Presbyterian Church and 
     changed each one of us forever.
       So Mr. Webb is dead? I don't think so. ``But,'' they say--
     the people who believe Mr. Webb is dead--``there was the 
     memorial service. The singing of hymns. There was the great 
     obit by Jack Neely in Metropulse. There was the long obit in 
     the News Sentinel He's dead, they say. Nope, Mr. Webb is not 
     dead; never will be.
       In my life and I hope in yours there is an unbroken line of 
     great teachers. For me, the line is: Miss Freeman, who taught 
     me seventh-grade English at Tyson Junior High School. Mr. 
     Webb, who introduced me to Latin. in the ninth grade. Ted 
     Bruning, my English teacher for the four years at Webb. RE. 
     Sharp, the teacher of life skills at Webb. And John Sobieski, 
     professor of civil procedure at the ``University of Tennessee 
     law school.
       The line is unbroken not because these great teachers are 
     all still alive but because they are all still with me. They 
     always will be. They live in my house. They are with me when 
     I talk to my children, they are with me when I try to be my 
     best, they are with me when I reach out to others. These five 
     fine people required hard work and excellence in their own 
     lives and expect the same of me.
       I had some good teachers at Harvard and Yale. But I had my 
     great teachers, my five great teachers, right here in 
     Knoxville. I don't know what that means. Perhaps the best 
     teaching is done by those who are not overly impressed with 
     themselves, by those who know that you never stand so tall as 
     when you reach down to help someone, by those who love 
     learning and want you to share that love.
       Henry Brooks Adams said. ``A teacher affects eternity. He 
     never knows where his influence stops.'' Mr. Webb affected 
     our eternities. He trained us to excellence. Mr. Webb wanted 
     the best from each of us, there in the basement of the 
     church. We delivered him our best because of his enthusiasm 
     for learning. We delivered him our best because of his 
     evident joy in the life of the mind. We delivered him our 
     best because of his love of life itself.
       He wanted us to be leaders. We became leaders because we 
     wanted to be like him. He took mere human beings and produced 
     leaders. You know the Latin in the coat of arms: You went to 
     Webb.

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