Duane Lockard

Abstract

Duane Lockard, professor of politics, emeritus, of Princeton University, died on June 19, 2006, from complications from Parkinson's disease. He was born in the poor coal-mining town of Owings, West Virginia; and, by the time he was eight, the Great Depression had increased his community's poverty. One of his childhood chores was to collect lumps of coal that fell from passing ore trains so his family could have heat in their house. As a teenager, he pumped gas at a filling station and, for a time, followed his father into the dark depths of the mines. Although the older men were kind to him, he found it oppressive to work in pitch blackness, hunched over in the small rooms carved out by pickaxes. In an effort to escape, he tried to enroll in Fairmont State Teachers College, planning to live at home and hitchhike the 18 miles to the school. Alas, when he tried to register, he could muster only half of the $30 tuition fee. Fortunately for future generations of scholars and students, a compassionate and perceptive dean recognized talent and allowed him to matriculate.