Austin Peay classics professor moonlights as deputy


              ADVANCE FOR WEEKEND EDITIONS, JULY 23-24 - In this July 12, 2016 photo, Austin Peay professor Tim Winters poses in Clarksville, Tenn. Winters has a careful balancing act going on between his duties as a professor, home life and shifts with the Montgomery County Sherriff’s Office, which he serves as a reserve deputy. (Ayrika Whitney/The Leaf-Chronicle via AP) NO SALES; MANDATORY CREDIT
ADVANCE FOR WEEKEND EDITIONS, JULY 23-24 - In this July 12, 2016 photo, Austin Peay professor Tim Winters poses in Clarksville, Tenn. Winters has a careful balancing act going on between his duties as a professor, home life and shifts with the Montgomery County Sherriff’s Office, which he serves as a reserve deputy. (Ayrika Whitney/The Leaf-Chronicle via AP) NO SALES; MANDATORY CREDIT

CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Tim Winters has a hard time sitting still, always has. He has to constantly be doing, moving, learning, trying new things and (most importantly to him) serving others.

This need to always be doing has been a recurring theme in Winters' life.

"From the time I was little kid, I would sell things door-to-door and shine shoes since I was 6 years old or something," the professor of classics at Austin Peay State University said.

Eventually this led to Winters making multiple plans for his future, taking seven years to get his undergrad because he kept switching (English to music to photography to English to Greek), spending two years in Greece studying archaeology and eventually moving to Clarksville.

These days, Winters has a careful balancing act going on between his duties as a professor, home life and shifts with the Montgomery County Sherriff's Office, which he serves as a reserve deputy.

Q: So why the classics?

Winters: "I kept trying to figure out why I was drawn to a particular group of writers. So I started reading biographies of the writers I did like, and the one thing they all had in common was lots of classics. So I started taking Greek as a means of understanding a particular group of English and French writers. Sat down in a classroom, started going through stuff and just realized that I had hit bedrock. I was at the sort of foundations of the Western literary canon. It was just like falling in love. I just knew this is where I needed to be. So started all over again, I was definitely on the seven-year plan."

Q: What is it that drew you to teaching?

Winters: "Part of it is just a drive to serve. My parents were both very much service-oriented people, my mother in particular. I've considered teaching to be a service occupation. .

"There is a certain amount of arrogance involved in teaching regardless of how you try to approach it because you think 'Why would anyone want to listen to me? Well, because I have something to say.' You have to think about that a little bit. But it is largely about communicating a passion for something."

Q: What is something the everyday man should know about your job?

Winters: "I guess what I hope that people know is that there is nothing irrelevant about the past. There is a group of Syrian refuges putting on one of Euripides' plays as a demonstration of the plight of these people. The literature that they produced is so fluid, so malleable that the ideas embedded in it are so fundamental that it continues to renew itself for every generation.

"That's why every generation continues to translate the 'Odyssey' and the 'Iliad.' There's hundreds of translations out there because they remain relevant, they remain important. . I guess what's really important right now is the expression of anger in the 'Iliad.' Something like that is something that people should have read so that they can see how destructive the power of anger is."

Q: What is the difference between a reserve and normal deputy?

Winters: "So a reserve deputy, obviously we are not paid. It's a volunteer position. And we have an obligation to ride one shift per month and like five special events per year. So we don't have to work a 40-hour week. Other than that, our training is the same as regular deputies. So we have to go through the exact same stuff they do in terms of driving and firearms training. Anything they do, we have to be able to do."

Q: So why did you become a sheriff's deputy?

Winters: "A friend of mine thought I would enjoy doing Citizens Police Academy, so I did that 12 years ago or something. Back then, you could do as many ride-a-longs as you want.

"I went out with an officer (Jennifer Sczerbiak) with the city . the first call that she got was a domestic. We got out there and backup showed up, the two of them got things settled down. Another call came in and backup had to leave. As soon as that other guy left, they were back at it, and she had no extra set of hands to deal with this. And I just saw that time after time after time for 12 hours. So I sort of decided back then that if there was anything I could do to help these people, I would like to have a hand in that.

"I started with the city in 2006 and worked with them for about six years. . I came over to the county in 2013. I just got hooked."

Q: Any carryover between the two?

Winters: "I've stopped a few students on the road. That's always a little awkward. Speeding tickets and things like that."

Q: How do your students react when they find out that you are a reserve deputy?

Winters: "They find out pretty quickly because I tell them every Friday don't drink and drive before I leave the classroom. . Most of them think it is pretty cool. They think it is cool that they have somebody who has a bit more of understanding of life at a different level outside of the life of the mind and the classroom."

Q: What is something that would surprise people about you?

Winters: "I also play drums in a rock band. I'm the drummer for Music for Mercy."

___

Information from: The Leaf-Chronicle, http://www.theleafchronicle.com

Upcoming Events