hello harding dad

It was the beginning of a new career for me. In the previous couple of years, I had been underemployed. That is to say, I was employed, but not fully to the capability of what I could do, or what I wanted to do. In fact, I was making pretty good money for that time. I was an adjunct professor at Roosevelt University and had a variety of other speaking and teaching engagements that paid pretty good.

In August 2008, when I returned to Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas, I felt like I had finally arrived.  For way too long, there were so many times I felt like I was waiting for my ship to come in while I was at the airport.
 
I was fulfilling a distant, never to be attained, dream. I may have wanted to do this, but I never dreamed that I would be a professor, but there I was, so anxious to get to class my first day of teaching that I went early.  I wanted to make sure that the PowerPoint worked, my handouts were all accounted for, the chairs were all lined up the desk were all ready for when the first student walked in. I was going to greet them and say, “Hi I’m Professor Shaner.”
 
However, when I arrived, I was not the first person there. There sat a young lady who was looking through her materials and watched me come through the door. She had a big beaming smile. I set my stuff down on the front table and as I walked over to her, I stuck out my hand and said, “Hello I'm professor Shaner, and who are you?” She answered, “My name is Shayna Varner.”
 
“Hi Shayna, where are you from? "I’m from Moundsville, West Virginia." To which I replied, "Oh, you must be a proud mountaineer?" Her eyes lit up her smile got even bigger and said emphatically, “Yes. I. am! How did you know we are the Mountaineers?"
 
I replied, “Well first of all, I'm a big sports fan, and I may not know where Moundsville is located, I do know where West Virginia is!”
 
Even though we were now located in the middle of Arkansas, the fact that I knew where West Virginia was, and that their state’s university mascot was a Mountaineer, really endeared me to her very quickly.
 
A week or two later, I was attending one of the Harding University women's soccer team games. I looked down the program to see if there was anybody that I might know. Lo and behold, there was her name, Shayna Varner.  I did have to think, is this the same young woman who is from West Virginia? The Shayna on the program was listed as number 11, so as they started playing, I looked for number 11 on the field, and yep that was her!
 
The next time we met for class, I said to Shayna, I saw your game yesterday and I saw that you had two assists in that win for the Lady Bison.
 
“You know how many assists I had in that game?” She asked. “Most people don't know that assists even exist in soccer, how did you know that?”
“I’m a sports fan, I said! “In fact, my wife says that I would watch a Tiddly-Winks Tournament on TV if there were one on!  At that comment, my students all looked at me like I had made up such a term and game as Tiddly-Winks!
 
What endeared her to me so much, was that she was a student who loved sports and was a good, no make that a GREAT, student of everything that I had to teach her.  It was so easy to like Shayna Varner.
 
Shayna and I became friends, even though I was warned against becoming too close to my students while at Roosevelt University, we were at Harding University, in a bond of Christian fellowship and spirit that is found in very few places, not at all like Roosevelt University in Chicago
 
Shayna would often come by my office to ask me about questions or assignments that we had, or something else, partially because my office door was always open, and she could see that in my office was a stuffed rocker-recliner chair for my visitors.
 
Shayna would come in and sit down in my rocker-recliner to ask me questions about sports and such. After a few times of coming to see me, I suspected she liked the rocker recliner more than she needed to know the answers to the questions that she was asking. Or was it the snacks that I always had in my office that I shared with anybody that would sit and visit with me? Hmmmm…
 
Now comes to a good part of the story. One day while my door was open and I was busy preparing for my next class there was a slight knock at my door. A very nice young man I knew from campus, stuck his head in there and said, “Hello Professor Shaner.” It was John Norton. (name changed to protect the innocent).
 
“Hey, come on in,” I said, “What's up?” He said, “I have an unusual question for you? Would it be OK if I asked Shayna to go on a date with me?”
 
Well, that really surprised me! Why is he asking me that question? So, I simply said, “Why are you asking me if you can go on a date with Shayna? That’s not for me to decide – you should ask her if you want to go out with her.”
 
John said, “Well isn't she your daughter?”
 
I said, “Nooooooo, she's not my daughter, what made you think that?”
 
Well, she's always in your office when I walk by here, and you know the same name and all?
 
“Wait, wait, wait, I said, we don't have the same name. Then it dawned on me.  A lot of college students just call each other by their last names only, and he must have heard Shayna and Shaner in an accent only becoming to Arkansans!  
 
I went on to tell him again, that if he wanted to ask Shayna on a date, he was going to have to do that without my help. I wanted nothing to do with that whole drama baiting situation.
 
The next time I saw Shayna, I pulled her aside and told her, “I just wanna give you a heads up, there was a boy that came by the other day and ask if he could take you on a date. What? Who was it? I told her John Norton… then I told her the rest of the story.
 
After Shayna figured out who John Norton was, she looked at me and said, ‘Professor, if you will just go ahead and tell him “No” for me, I'll go ahead and let you be my Harding Dad!
 
And that was that...  I never heard another word about if they ever went out on a date or not. But Shayna kept coming by my office, time after time, popping her head around the corner of my door with that big beaming smile and saying, “Hello Harding Dad!”
 
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