Full Text of SR0929 102nd General Assembly
SR0929 102ND GENERAL ASSEMBLY |
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| 1 | | SENATE RESOLUTION
| 2 | | WHEREAS, The members of the Illinois Senate are saddened | 3 | | to learn of the death of Allan Albert Metcalf, Ph.D., who | 4 | | passed away on February 24, 2022; and
| 5 | | WHEREAS, Dr. Metcalf was born to George Joseph Metcalf and | 6 | | Mary Ellen Stephens in Clayton, Missouri on April 18, 1940; he | 7 | | moved with his family to the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago | 8 | | as a toddler, when his father accepted a faculty position at | 9 | | the University of Chicago; he formed a barbershop quartet boy | 10 | | band in his youth; he was an Eagle Scout and earned The Order | 11 | | of the Arrow, the highest Boy Scout honor; he graduated the | 12 | | University of Chicago Laboratory School as valedictorian in | 13 | | 1957; he received his Bachelor of Arts in English from Cornell | 14 | | University in Ithaca, New York in 1961, where he served as | 15 | | editor in chief of the Cornell Daily Sun; he received a year's | 16 | | fellowship to study at the Free University of Berlin in West | 17 | | Berlin, Germany from 1961 to 1962; he earned his Master of Arts | 18 | | in English in 1964 and his Ph.D. in English in 1966, both from | 19 | | the University of California, Berkeley; he married Teri Flynn, | 20 | | and they had four children; and
| 21 | | WHEREAS, After settling in Southern California, Dr. | 22 | | Metcalf began his faculty career as an assistant professor of | 23 | | English at the University of California in Riverside from 1966 |
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| 1 | | to 1973; he was invited to become chair of the English | 2 | | Department at MacMurray College in Jacksonville, Illinois; he | 3 | | returned to his home state as a tenured professor of English | 4 | | and Journalism at MacMurray College in 1973, where he was an | 5 | | esteemed faculty member for 46 years and was named professor | 6 | | emeritus; and
| 7 | | WHEREAS, Dr. Metcalf became a world-renowned linguist and | 8 | | dialectologist in between teaching rhetoric; his passion for | 9 | | words, their origins, and how people talk led him to be | 10 | | appointed executive secretary of the American Dialect Society | 11 | | (ADS), a post he held for 41 years, where he originated the | 12 | | ADS's now popular Word of the Year vote; and
| 13 | | WHEREAS, Dr. Metcalf became a celebrated author of eight | 14 | | English language books, with his work including OK: The | 15 | | Improbable Story of America's Greatest Word, From Skedaddle to | 16 | | Selfie: Words of the Generations, and Presidential Voices, | 17 | | chronicling the speaking styles of U.S. Presidents; his final | 18 | | book was The Life of Guy, an entertaining history of one of | 19 | | America's favorite pronouns; and
| 20 | | WHEREAS, Dr. Metcalf was known as a lover of all words | 21 | | great and small, written and spoken, from prose to songs and | 22 | | sonnets; he loved the Chicago Cubs; while struggling with | 23 | | Parkinson's in his final years, he never stopped smiling, |
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| 1 | | singing, or quipping a pun or word play to the delight of | 2 | | others; he will be remembered as a beloved teacher to tens of | 3 | | thousands of students and a standout guy who had a positive | 4 | | influence on the lives of many; and
| 5 | | WHEREAS, Dr. Metcalf was the husband of Teri; the father | 6 | | of Stephen Joseph Metcalf, David Harker Metcalf, Michael | 7 | | Bailard Metcalf, and Sara Susanne Metcalf; the grandfather of | 8 | | seven; and the older brother of Robert Harker "Bobby" Metcalf; | 9 | | therefore, be it
| 10 | | RESOLVED, BY THE SENATE OF THE ONE HUNDRED SECOND GENERAL | 11 | | ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we mourn the passing of | 12 | | Allan Albert Metcalf, Ph.D. and extend our sincere condolences | 13 | | to his family, friends, and all who knew and loved him; and be | 14 | | it further
| 15 | | RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be | 16 | | presented to the family of Dr. Metcalf as an expression of our | 17 | | deepest sympathy.
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