Reminiscences

Mrs. Bybee by David Wright

Added June 21, 2013

    I realize that for many, many VHS Class of 1966-? seniors, Mrs. Hunter (aka Aunt Lucy) was one of VHS's more challenging and memory making instructors. So many VHS grads have a quick, and often witty, memory of Aunt Lucy which they can reel off with no prior prodding or thought.

    For me, however, I never had the priviledge of Mrs. Hunter's tutelage. I enjoyed Mrs. Bybee's unique instructional style my senior year at VHS instead. Mrs. Bybee always stressed the importance of having a vast and well-studied command of the English vocabulary. At least through the Fall of 1970, Mrs. Bybee assigned weekly vocabulary words for us to commit to our adolescent minds. Many of the assigned words were arcane, didactic and pedantic. For the most part, however, Mrs. Bybee's students didn't object and complied with the definitional pursuit of the word and meekly submitted to the weekly "pop" vocabulary quizzes.

    I'll never forget one particular word Mrs. Bybee assigned in the Fall of 1970: titular. This word seemed intolerably arcane and pedantic due to the fact that, at least in my dictionary, the word was considered archaic by the dictionary's editors. I vigorously objected to the archaic nature of the word "titular" to Mrs. Bybee. I explained what a waste I thought it was for her to assign us words which were no longer in common usage. I insisted, further, that this word was of no practical value to our formative minds, cluttered up otherwise valuable brain real estate, and was of no relevance in any way, shape or form.

    Mrs. Bybee was unmoved. "Titular", by the way, means "existing in title only; having the title and usually the honors belonging to an office or dignity without the duties, functions, or responsibilities." The word was in common usage when monarchies were in vogue worldwide particularly in the 17th and 18th centuries.

    Mrs. Bybee, you'll be more than delighted to know that 41 years and 8 months after you forced me to learn the word "titular", I was able to effectively employ the word, correctly, in a business meeting.

    Gathered around a large conference room table, yesterday, I was meeting with representatives from one of America's very large chemical producers and local environmental groups jointly considering how to move forward with a large piece of "brownfield" property owned by the chemical manufacturing company. Representing one of the local environmental groups, I was able to discuss some of the history of said group and state that the group's first President had been a "titular" President of the group, which indeed he had been.

    You can rest assured that no one was more surprised than I when I was able to pull "titular" from some long ago VHS dust bin and employ for one, and only one, time in my life. God bless you Mrs. Bybee and Davis County School District should be pleased to know that county tax dollars were not entirely wasted on me!