By Meg Veal
Correspondent
CLEVELAND, Tenn. — At age 87, Alexander Delk just can’t think of a reason to stop teaching.
“I love working with young people,” said Mr. Delk, who teaches night classes in public speaking at Cleveland State Community College. “I like to feel that I have a positive influence on their lives.”
Mr. Delk has been at Cleveland State since 1991. In 2007 he received the Outstanding Adjunct Faculty Member of the Year award.
Cleveland State President Carl Hite said Mr. Delk’s students give their teacher excellent evaluations.
“I hope he is still teaching when he’s 97,” Dr. Hite said. “He’s well-educated and his heart is in the right place. He amazes me.”
Emily Cole took public speaking last fall and got a surprise.
“When I found out how old he was, I thought the class was going to be really boring, but it was actually a lot of fun,” she said.
Mr. Delk said he has around 150 students this semester and each will have to give two or three speeches before he can learn their names.
“It takes weeks to get to know everybody,” he said.
His own first speech was a valedictory address to his eighth-grade class of eight students. He had careers as a pastor, teacher and principal before retiring in 1987 and moving back to Cleveland in 1990.
He said he hopes to stand for more than clear thoughts and precise diction.
“While I’m very strong in my religious beliefs, I feel I set an example and certainly have an influence,” Mr. Delk said. He describes himself as “conservative, but not so conservative as to be narrow-minded.”
“I’ve seen — in my many years — so much change. Change in society, a change in morals, a change in a lot of things,” he said.
Mr. Delk said he fell in 2007 and finished the semester in a wheelchair. He said he almost quit after that, but they almost insisted that he stay.
Dr. Hite said, “I told him he could stay as long as he wanted to.”
Mr. Delk takes care of himself, reads a lot and drives wherever he wants. He loves to play Scrabble and does the word jumble in the newspaper every day. He teaches at night so he has all day to grade papers, he said.
“I don’t want someone else doing it for me,” he said. “I’m set in my ways, but most old people are.”
And he has no plans to quit teaching as long as his health holds out.
“I think my mind’s still pretty good, but if I got to the point that it was tiring and wearisome, I’d quit,” he said.
Meg Veal is based in Cleveland. Contact her at megveal@gmail.com.