Category Archives: Dad

Dr. William Omar Reece (September 4, 1928 – February 1, 2023)

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Dr. William Omar Reece, 94, died on Wednesday February 1 surrounded by his family.  Funeral services will be held on Saturday February 11, at 11:00 a.m. at St. Cecilia Catholic Church in Ames.

William Omar Reece was born in Ledyard, Iowa to the parents of Ovedia and Edward Reece on September 4, 1928.  He lived on the family farm in Ledyard until he graduated high school in May of 1946 as class valedictorian where he inspired his class by saying, “You have crossed the bay; the ocean lies before you.”  He enlisted into the U.S. Army, reporting for duty on September 16, 1946 at Fort Snelling as a Private in the Army of Occupation.  He departed on the SS Chanute Victory, a troop ship bound for Yokohama Japan, on December 2, 1946 with about 1,500 other GI’s.  He was a World War II veteran.

After his enlistment, he applied for admission to Iowa State College to pursue courses in Veterinary Medicine and obtained a job as a waiter in the girl’s dormitories where he was able to get 3 meals/day, all days of the week.  He was later promoted to head waiter and there he met his future wife, Shirley Ann Bruckner.  They were married on December 26, 1953 at St. Thomas Aquinas in Ames.

He graduated from Veterinary School and the couple moved to Galesville, WI where he worked in Dr. Leonard J. Larson’s practice.  He later took a position for Swift and Company in Chicago, where Shirley’s parents lived and started his family.  He worked for Swift for 6 years and accepted a graduate position at Iowa State in September of 1961.

He went on to have an accomplished 38-year teaching career at Iowa State and retired from the College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM) in 1998.  During his career, he won several awards for outstanding teaching, and was selected ISU-CVM Professor of the Year in 1967 and the ISU Outstanding Teaching Award in 1970.  In 2018, Dr. Reece was the recipient of the William P. Switzer Award recognizing his contributions to society and to the college.

He was instrumental in influencing admissions policies and decisions to create more opportunities for women in the veterinary field, which is now approximately 63% female.  He authored several textbooks still in use today and that are published in multiple languages.

He served as an interim head of Tuskegee Veterinary school and was a visiting professor at the University of Glasgow, Scotland.  He established a student exchange program between Glasgow and Iowa State benefitting dozens of students and often hosted students in his home.

Every Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) student took his physiology course and he taught over 2,000 DVM students.  The college’s advising award is named in his honor.  He was a caring man, always taking time to know the name of everyone he interacted with.  One of his colleagues said, “I can’t think of anyone that represents all that is well and good with the ideals of the veterinary profession and the ISU CVM more than Dr. Reece.  A true Gentle Doctor.”

He often said that he couldn’t have planned a better life and that it was the Hand of God that guided him and his family.  He was proud of his parents, his agricultural background, and his vocational choice in veterinary medicine and the opportunities it afforded.  The collegiality of the profession and of his class of 1954 were always dear to his heart.  Upon his retirement, Shirley presented him a plaque which had the following quotation from Pope John XXIII that summed up his life philosophy:

“See Everything.  Overlook a Great Deal.  Improve a Little.”

Survivors include six daughters: Mary Kay Truckenmiller (Steve) of Ames, Kathy Farstad (Jim) of Minneapolis, Barbara Benn (Jim) of Ames, Sara Reece (Jim Denny) of Ames, Anna Herrick (Rob) of Cleveland Ohio, Susan Randall (Mike) of Overland Park Kansas, and one son: William Omar Reece II. (Heather) of Hudson, Wisconsin.  In addition, he is survived by 24 grandchildren and 20 great-grandchildren.  He was preceded in death by his wife and 4 siblings.

Unwavering Commitment on an Icy Day

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This weekend we had some weather that made it impossible to drive. Travel was not advised in our area, and public transportation was stopped because it was so bad. This reminded me of one day around 1980 when I was a kid growing up in Ames, Iowa.

On that day, travel was not advised as well; however, that day wasn’t just a day, it was Palm Sunday. Growing up in a Catholic home, every Sunday was important, but Palm Sunday is one of those special Sundays—not quite like Super Bowl Sunday, but definitely comparable to the conference playoffs.

Our home church, St. Cecilia, was about 4 miles away. With no car travel possible, I’m sure that I thought I had this free-of-church Sunday in the bag. After all, if you can’t drive, you can’t go to church.

Wrong.

My mother informed us that we were going to St. Thomas that morning. St. Thomas was the second Catholic church in town, and on campus at Iowa State, about 2 miles from our house.

“But how are we going to get there?”, I pleaded.

“We’re walking,” said my mother.

And so we walked.

Today as I reflected about that Palm Sunday, the story was less about religious conviction and more about simply demonstrating an  unwavering commitment.

All of us could commit to things in our life in a more unwavering way. But those justifications and excuses always get in the way, convincing us why giving less than 100% effort to something is okay. It could be our school work, or our relationships, or our work, or the need to lose that weight, or to exercise more, or to listen, or to just give the person sitting next to you your full attention.

As real opportunities to demonstrate your unwavering commitment present themselves in 2020, what are you going to do–talk yourself into staying at home or walk?

What Your Dad Never Told You

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I was recently talking to a new Dad, and he asked me what was my perspective on being a Dad.

“It’s like removing yourself from the center of your universe and replacing it with someone else,” I said to him.

No one really prepares you for this re-framing, and you could speculate that some Dads don’t ever quite “get there”, but for the ones that do, it’s something that our children likely don’t understand until much later when they find themselves as parents.

We love you unconditionally.  That means we love you no matter what you do, or how you act, or what you say, or what you don’t say.  We love you this way because we are your Dad, and you are the center of our universe.

There are times that it isn’t easy being a Dad.  We worry about protecting you.    If you ever feel like we’re in the way, it’s because we’re trying to shield you from something that you don’t know or understand—yet.

We struggle when to let go and when to hold on.  Our instinct is to hold on, always hold on.  But there comes a point where we rationalize that our grip, on you, must loosen, as you experiment down your own path.  We do this because we believe in you.  We pray that somehow, somewhere, our guidance and support of you has been engrained into your DNA so that you can have a happy and successful life.

You give us so many moments that make us proud, too.  They remain in our minds, forever, painted like the pictures we took of each moment, of each achievement, of each milestone.  You gave us those moments, at those times, but also you gave them to us forever.  As you grow up, the puzzle pieces of your life will start to fit together, but we’re always there as the border pieces, surrounding you with who you are at your core and the lessons we taught you along the way.

We’ll always have each other.  No matter what the circumstances are, no one will ever take that away from us.  Even when we’re gone, we’re not gone.  You will take little pieces of who we were and weave them into your life because those pieces are the pieces that you’ll never ever forget about your Dad, because you were the center of your Dad’s universe.

Happy Father’s Day 2018 to Dads that are with us, and those that have left us.

The Next Chapter

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Taking my oldest son to college for the first time was harder than I thought.  My wife and I left with him Wednesday night and moved him in on Thursday.  Then, we left.

All the clichés are true; it happens more quickly than you think.  I can attest to that.  One day you’re putting him on the school bus for the first time, and then almost without blinking you’re hugging him in the dorm parking lot saying good bye.  You feel this extreme loss of his presence, knowing that it will never be the same.

But then my 88 year-old father, who did this 7 times, said it’s like he’s starting his next chapter.  For some reason that made me feel better, that somehow, for him, he’s getting to start something he’s been waiting a long time to start.  I then remember how happy I was for my next chapter after my parents dropped me off at college.  These additional perspectives helped me balance my own feelings of loss and fear I felt by dropping him off.

Maybe it should be about him, and not me?

I talk a lot about the “change cycle.”  This is a model that tells you no matter how big or small the change is that you are experiencing, science tells us that we always go through the same sequential 6 stages—Loss, Doubt, Discomfort, Discovery, Understanding, Integration.  The pace in which one goes through the cycle is dependent on several factors.  One thing I like about the model is that just knowing you go through all 6 stages—and you will eventually get to Integration—in of itself is comforting.  By using this model, I can self-identify that I am in the Loss and Doubt stages, and that is OK.

This one will take me a while.  The text messages and once a week phone calls help too.  After we got home, his younger brothers launched a multi-phased project where everyone was switching rooms.

“We keep no shrines,” my mother used to say when the exact same thing happened 45 years ago with my 6 sisters.

Peyton moved into Will’s now empty room.  Henry moved into Peyton’s room and Eddie stayed in the room he previously shared with Henry.  We moved clothes, dressers, beds–the works.  Now the remaining boys all have their own room.

Feels like they moved through the change cycle pretty quickly.  Have to love your siblings.

Blog: Have We Lost Our Ability to Wonder?

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“Ohio,” my father said out loud in the middle of Sunday church.

Puzzled, I looked at him, and he just smiled back.  The biggest smile I’ve seen from him in a while.  I must admit, I wondered for a second if he was losing it.  I tilted my head, shrugged my shoulders, and moved on.

Later that day, he was hanging out with my family.  Someone had posed a question about what year an athlete had played on a local team.  One of my children, seemingly on auto-pilot, quickly looked up the answer on his device and blurted out the answer, like a robot reading from a script.

“Don’t kids have any sense of wonderment anymore?” my Dad asked.  “No, not really,” I responded matter-of-factly.

Dad’s right.  Whatever ability we’ve ever had to truly ponder and think about something, to rack our brains for the answer, seems gone today.  Vanished, like hand writing a letter to someone.  We’ve all been out with friends to have “that guy” in the group who is always on his phone looking up answers to questions that are posed.  Our ability to actually dialog on topics like this seems to be fading.

I suppose one could argue whether or not there are any unintended consequences for this, but I admit I worry that the value mental problem solving, and the sweat equity involved to do so, is missing from our youth today.  I remember thinking about work problems for days, only to solve them days later in a moment of silence.  I felt happiness from that, figuring out something on my own, giving it time, making by brain work for it.

Today, if kids don’t know the answer to something, they just look up the answer.  Done.  Move on to a new topic.  No debates, bets, or dialog.  Like it’s a waste of time to actually sit and think about something.

That night, I asked Dad why he said the word “Ohio” out loud during mass that morning.  He said that days before, his trivia calendar asked to name the three states that were four-letter words.  He immediately recalled Iowa and Utah, but couldn’t remember the third one.

Days later, it came to him: Ohio.  And, with it, a smile.  He had figured it out on his own, at his pace.  Thanks Dad!

A New Paradox–Work Out Loud and Be Invisible

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Jim Collins made the concept of Level 5 Leadership famous. In a nutshell, Collins studied great companies and what was common across all was a leader who had both unbelievable humility coupled with fierce resolve.

You can’t just turn into a Level 5 leader overnight. I’ve never had a problem with having fierce resolve, or what my friends tease me about, having what is called an “unwavering commitment” in everything I do. But I wish I had more of my father’s humility. I admire my father for this, as evidenced in this quotation from him at the age of 86: “Still, I am learning”. That’s powerful. Most of us think we already have it all figured out, when in actuality we’re kidding ourselves.

At the time of the Collins writing, these two leadership attributes were an amazing paradox, one that I personally still have not figured out, but a recent David Zweig book called “Invisibles–The Power of Anonymous Work in an Age of Relentless Self-Promotion” has introduced a newer, and equally difficult paradox for me:

Work out Loud, but be invisible. That one, I admit, I don’t have figured out.

Loose Change Lessons

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In 1986 I lived in Glasgow, Scotland with my parents and sister Susan while Dad was a visiting professor at the University of Glasgow for a semester. We lived in a flat and had no car. We walked or took public transportation everywhere. On the way to school there was an ice cream store. I don’t remember the name of it but one of the treats they had was an ice cream sandwich of sorts called a “Wafer”. Essentially home-made ice cream packed between 2 wafer cookies of sorts. It was delicious.

Kids like ice cream. I was a kid. But I don’t remember getting an ice cream every time I walked by. What I do remember is that Dad has always been proficient at finding loose change on the ground. Eyes peeled to the ground, he could find a coin in the smallest of spaces. Most days, he would come home and deposit that day’s change in a jar. When the grand total in the jar equaled enough to buy 4 wafers, off we went to the ice cream store. Then, the process would begin again.

Hundreds of times walking by=no ice cream

A couple times with a jar of change=appreciated ice cream

I was reminded of this story when in Chicago with my kids on a trip. We had eaten breakfast in the hotel room and my kids had been given a glass of Archer farms apple juice which we had brought from home. I noticed as we left the room that some of the juice had gone unfinished, which is fairly normal. But at least we had attempted to meet their basic needs. Within the hour, we were waiting to get the pass we had purchased for touring the sights and I decided to buy my wife and I a cup of coffee. All four kids in tow, we waited in line and I ordered the coffees.

Suddenly, the kids just expected to also get—of all things—a juice box of apple juice. Not the cheap variety mind you, but $2 a pop. That’s 2 bucks times 4 kids. My initial reaction was “no”. “No” is a complete sentence. Unpopular decision. We parents are faced with these decisions all the time. “Oh come on, we’re on a vacation.” or “pick your battles.”

I talked to my kids about this blog/story and for me it comes down to appreciation. If you are privileged in life, then showing appreciation can neutralize your behaviors of entitlement. My Dad’s lesson in loose change was an intentional teaching point. I’m sure had I asked for some impromptu ice cream he would have bought it for me, but I never expected it. Whether it is ice cream or apple juice, sometimes waiting for enough loose change might just teach you a valuable lesson in appreciation.