Lateefah Simon: “Several weeks ago I attended a memorial service for Dr. Ernie Boyer, a man who had dedicated most of his life to…”

“Several weeks ago I attended a memorial service for Dr. Ernie Boyer, a man who had dedicated most of his life to improving education and educational opportunities for all Americans. The memorial service was more of a celebration of who Ernie was and how many lives he touched than a farewell. Speakers included his son Ernest Boyer, Jr., Secretary of Education Riley, Senator Edward Kennedy and the principal of a San Antonio elementary school Ernie nurtured along. None of us said it better than a fifth grader who had gotten to know Ernie Boyer, 'You say you don't know who Dr. Boyer was? You never got to know him? Too Bad! You would have loved him.' I am submitting the remarks made by several of us at the service and hope my colleagues will take the time to read what Ernie Boyer meant to a lot of very different people. William Butler Yeats, the Irish poet and later an Irish Senator, in the mid 1920s wrote in a poem: 'The best lack conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.' It sounds as if he is writing about today. But Yeats did not know Ernie Boyer. His quiet demeanor, his ready smile and marvelous laughter, his soft response to a hostile question were not indications that he lacked solid conviction. He had backbone and vision and an understanding of humanity that combined to make him superbly effective.”