Terrance Dilley turned down a chance to study at the Vatican to spend a lifetime doing what he called “the Lord’s work” — teaching at Riverland Community College.

Ten Riverland faculty members gathered Friday in the school’s library to share stories about Dilley a week after he passed away April 25 to complications from Myasethenia gravis, a neuromuscular disorder. He was 73.

Friends remembered him as highly intelligent, but someone who loved to laugh. Sharon Hyland, who teaches psychology, told a story that after Dilley started lifting weights and didn’t want to spend money to buy a weight bench, he asked Hyland for advice about using an ironing board instead. She told Dilley his scheme would never work because the ironing board would only hold about 10 pounds, but Dilley tried anyway. He sat on the ironing board, it collapsed and he fell over.

To Dilley, it confirmed he should listen to his friend’s advice.

To Hyland and Dilley’s friends, it confirmed Dilley loved to laugh — especially at himself — since he didn’t try to hide the story; he told it to everyone.

“He laughed at everything, at everybody, but he laughed at himself the most,” Hyland said.

 

A life at Riverland

Dilley was born May 20, 1940, in Huron, S.D., and he started teaching at Austin Junior College in 1965 — the same year he married Ann Kelly, who died about 10 years ago. They had three children: Sean, Erin and Sheila. Riverland’s Executive Assistant to the President and Alumni Director Marijo Alexander was Dilley’s partner for about the last eight years.

From 1965 on, Dilley never left the school, and he played a pivotal role in making the college what it is today by serving on several hiring committees and helping with transitions when Austin Community College, South Central Technical College—Albert Lea, and Riverland Technical College locations in Austin and Owatonna merged to form Riverland Community College in 1996, his colleagues said.

Keith Cich, who works in the school library, described Dilley as his gateway into the Riverland community when he moved from Duluth.

“He loved to tell stories about people all the time,” Cich said. “He really saw a value in everyone — in a very humorous way, but he had a way of picking out things that were very valuable.”

Rich Campbell, who teaches English and humanities, agreed Dilley was one of the first people to welcome most new faculty to the college, often by taking them to coffee — something he also did with students.

Dilley almost always asked new people the same question: What are you reading? Then he’d tell people what he was reading.

Dilley was one of Jerry Girton’s first teachers when he attended Austin Junior College. When Girton came back to run the theater department about 20 years later, Dilley remembered Girton, the class, the textbook, Girton’s friends and the plays he acted in when he was at the school.

Girton said Dilley never treated him like a former student; he was an instant colleague.

Hyland said that was common.

“He made me immediately feel like a valued member of the faculty,” Hyland said.

 

‘I don’t know anyone smarter than him’

Dilley taught philosophy, sociology, anthropology, history, religions of the world, economics and humanities, among other subjects. He also spoke Latin, French, German and Greek.

Friends remember him as a master at handling the classroom.

Despite being remembered for a photographic memory, Dilley still completed thorough prep work for class.

Dilley also coached tennis at the college from 1976 to 1993 and is a member of the school sports hall of fame. He also served on the ethics board at the Austin medical center for about a decade.

Karen Herreid, a psychology professor, first met Dilley at 23, when she took his sociology class. She was later was part of the Great Books Club, which started as a community education class.

“I know some smart people, but Terry — I don’t know anyone smarter than him,” Herreid said.

After the class, Dilley kept it going as a private club for decades. Dean Ulland, a history professor, remembers Dilley only missing a few of the weekly meetings.

Several people recalled the “Spinoza episode” when Dilley chose philosopher Baruch Spinoza for book club, which proved difficult — if not impossible — for most to finish. After, he wasn’t allowed to select book club reads for several years.

Ulland recalled giving a talk during library week and thinking he was an expert on his subject — until he talked to Dilley.

“He had things to add that I had no idea about,” Ulland said.

Dean of Allied Health & Biology Pamela Tranby said that was common.

“Whatever you were doing, he knew more about than you did,” she said.

Still, Dilley was never arrogant.

Girton said Dilley always expected students to do their best, even if it wasn’t Grade A work.

“I know he taught some really tough courses, like logic is pretty hard for some people, and he would never flunk anybody that really worked at it,” Girton said.

Dilley was known for taking people out and buying their coffee or lunch, or he’d give away several tickets to the sauerkraut dinner at Christ Episcopal Church.

“He was generous to a fault,” said Sue Grove, who taught English and French and is the Phi Theta Kappa advisor.

 

A home away from home

Dilley, an avid reader, loved Michel de Montaigne, Marcel Proust, and shortly before his death he gave many friends a book with essays on friendship by Joseph Epstien.

“His friendships didn’t just end when school was out,” Alexander said.

Alexander said Dilley always told her he’d buy the Riverland library to make it his home if he won the lottery.

“It was his home away from home,” Alexander said.

Cich remembers seeing Dilley spending several hours a day at the school library, where he commonly read his favorite periodicals like The Economist, The New Yorker and The Atlantic, and he read a large number of the books in the library.

“He’d read everything,” Cich said.

Campbell recalled he’d read a work by Søren Kierkegaard and Dilley hadn’t, but then Dilley read it so he could discuss it.

His friends and colleagues joked that Luke Sperduto, an institutional research analyst at Riverland, made Dilley mad because he was reading two books Dilley hadn’t read, but Dilley eventually read a book to help him understand Sperduto’s master’s paper on ethics.

“He’s probably one of the only people who’s read my master’s thesis,” Sperduto said.

Dilley even insisted on buying Sperduto lunch to talk about it.

As most gathered Friday said, he read all of their master’s papers, and he had true intellectual curiosity and a mind like a trap.

Despite being widely read, Sue Grove joked Dilley couldn’t grasp the concept of escapist literature.

 

‘A biology girl’

Dilley taught three generations in many families, and he taught several faculty member’s children.

Herreid recalled crying on the phone when she told her daughter, Kristin, about Dilley’s passing, as he inspired Kristin to teach at a community college when she took a post-secondary class from him. Dilley even tutored Kristin in Latin. During her time in post-secondary, Kristin announced to her parents she was going on the college’s London Dash trip with Dilley — instead of waiting to go to Europe with her parents — because of his breadth of knowledge.

After Hyland’s daughter, Megan, graduated from Riverland, she helped Dilley express his distaste for cellphones. She came to class one day, opened her cellphone during class and Dilley came over and snapped it in half — without the class knowing it was planned.

“I don’t think he had any problem with cellphones that semester,” Hyland joked.

Dilley wasn’t one to embrace new technology and wasn’t a fan of online classes. Grove remembers a trip where he started yelling at a GPS device.

“He missed the turn,” Grove said with a laugh.

Still, Dilley had a diverse set of interests like drumming, and he even knew a lot about modern music and discussed music with students.

Tranby, who taught a large biology class by lecturing with a microphone, remembered Dilley and Girton hijacking a class to sing a version of Madonna’s “Material Girl” but by substituting “biology girl.”

“They did the whole song,” Tranby said, admitting she was on the floor laughing.

Despite his intellect, Grove was humored that Dilley liked sports cars and later became a fan of court TV.

Girton remembers Dilley voicing concern to him after learning a former college administrator’s two favorite things were reading a popular lifestyle magazine and watching “Wheel of Fortune.”

“He got really upset by that — I mean really obsessively upset,” Girton said.

Dilley was also known for his many sayings — or Dilley-isms. Ulland remembers him saying “well it’s time to go slap it in” before lunch, and almost any event or gathering was called a “rat killing.”

Dilley was also known for napping between classes — or “zenning down” as he called it — between classes in a napping chair in his office.

“Heaven help anyone who disturbed him,” Ulland joked.

From an abbey to a master’s

But Dilley didn’t embark directly on a lifetime in teaching.

Dilley grew up a methodist, studied at Blue Cloud Abbey near Marvin, S.D., but he turned down an opportunity to study at the Vatican to get his master’s in sociology.

He was later a member of Christ Episcopal Church, but he also read the Quran three times and studied other religions to teach religions of the world.

Dilley was highly intellectual, but friends joke that he was incompetent when it came to physical labor like carpentry. At the abbey, he and the abbott were delegated to straightening crooked nails when the people at the abbey were constructing a building.

Though Dilley held strong his own beliefs, his friends said he was open and accepting of differing views. He counseled people on how to avoid the draft during the Vietnam War, and Hyland jokingly told him she’d one day request a copy of his FBI file.

His friends said he was dedicated to making everything he was involved with from the school and church to the community better.

People remember him as a tolerant man who rarely lost his temper. The two things that brought out his temper: Cellphones and ongoing, long faculty meetings.

“He always said that hell was a faculty meeting going on and on and on and on,” Hyland said.

However, Girton remembers Dilley’s respect for college administration, even though he had no desire to be an administrator and probably turned down several opportunities to become one.

For Dilley, his love was teaching.

When someone told him they were thinking about going back to teach college, Girton remembers Dilley telling them, “You don’t really mean that.”

Tranby served on several search committees with Dilley to look for new teachers and administrators and said he was always most interested in was people who were smart and interesting, along with their skill as a teacher and administrator.

“He would say, ‘They’d be so much fun to add them to the coffee group,’” Tranby said.

Tranby described Dilley as a generous man who always wanted others to be involved in search committees, leadership roles and projects.

“He shared everything and he wanted everybody else involved,” Tranby said.

Grove said Alexander got Dilley to do things he wouldn’t have otherwise, like taking a beach vacation and wearing jeans — once, according to people’s memory.

However, friends joked the beach vacation was the longest week of Dilley’s life, even though they tried telling him he could bring books to the beach.

 

‘He loved everything about it’

Even when he retired in 2004, colleagues say he still probably spent the most time at the school. Dilley didn’t stop teaching until last December when he went to class but couldn’t physically teach.

When Hyland discussed the possibility of her own phased retirement with Dilley, he said he never regretted teaching through retirement.

“He retired and he never stopped teaching,” she said.

In a letter recommending Dilley for an honorary doctoral degree, Campbell called a Dilley “as much a ‘landmark’ of this college as its buildings, its logos, and its other employees.”

“I am certain that when people think of Riverland, they think of Terry Dilley!” Campbell wrote.

Dilley received the honorary degree at last year’s commencement.

Several friends said many teachers stayed at Riverland because of the environment Dilley helped created. Dilley stayed at the school because he loved the students and the people.

“He loved everything about it,” Grove said.