Howard and Helen Smith

Why did you choose to create a scholarship at SUNY Geneseo?
At Geneseo, I was able to work my way through school and still write for the Lamron and other forums. I wanted to help students who face the same challenge that I did—paying expenses while also forging writing and speaking skills that make possible a career.

What would you want the recipients of this scholarship to know about the person for whom it is named?
My grandparents lived in Pike, pop.400, in western New York. A PBS documentary etched their and others’ small towns well: “The Forgotten Americans. The Silent Majority. Hard-working, church-going people. People with an unbred respect for authority and unyielding belief in the American Dream.” Howard Smith farmed and worked for the legendary New York Central Railroad. Wife Helen got her college degree in the 1920s to teach—then, daring for a woman. They provided a great example for their grandchildren to follow.

Tell us about your favorite Geneseo memory, favorite tradition, or what Geneseo has meant to you.
Geneseo meant so much that I wrote a book, Long Time Gone: The Years of Turmoil Remembered, tying my vignettes on campus life and classmates with interviews of public figures who made 1969-73 in college incandescent: from Richard Nixon to Betty Friedan, Jerry Rubin to Ronald Reagan. My favorite memory is twilight, gazing at the Genesee Valley, gleaming in the dusk: “its land plain and rolling and unbroken, pleasant, almost golden”—still.

What do you hope your recipients gain through this scholarship?
An appreciation for hard word, loyalty to and from Geneseo, and the priceless gift of learning—the gift that students give themselves, from one generation to the next.
-as told by Curt Smith ’73