The boy most likely

Johnny Gerhart’s name came up again this week, in an incidental way. Oran Logan, a ninth-grade classmate of John’s at South Junior High School (Abilene, Texas, 1957-58) came into possession of scrapbook material that Oran’s mother had kept all these years. Among these was a page from the school newspaper, the “Coyote Howl” (coyote pronounced “ky-yoat,” in the West Texan dialect).

The page announced the results of student polling for ninth-grade class favorites. There were Friendliest Girl and Boy, Beautiful Girl, Handsome Boy, Most Talented Girl and Boy, Best All-Around Girl and Boy, Girl and Boy Most Likely to Succeed, Most Athletic Girl and Boy.

This page was circulated among an email classmates list. It was fun seeing again who won, and wry comments were passed around (“Bob Cluck was runner-up Handsome Boy?”).

Most of the comments, though, were about Johnny Gerhart, who was selected Boy Most Likely to Succeed.

It shows the power of even the unsophisticated to detect greatness. Not a single one of us in the hallways of South Junior in 1957-58 would have seen Gerhart coming down the hall and thought: “Harvard grad, double degree in English and French history and literature; at Harvard, he wrote for the Crimson (school newspaper); took a year off in 1963 to teach high school in Tanzania; a Masters and a Ph.D. in Public Affairs from Princeton; international educator and philanthropist; from 1969-98, a Ford Foundation representative all over Africa; president of The American University in Cairo, 1998-2002; named by Princeton’s graduate faculties as one of their 100 most notable alumni of the 20th century.”

Nope, we just saw Johnny, coming down the hall, on the short side, plaid shirt, Levi’s rolled up two laps, grinning and waving hello (I’ll bet he won Friendliest, too, but they couldn’t give two awards), just one of us. But we knew something. We looked at Johnny Gerhart and voted him Boy Most Likely to Succeed, hands down. How did we know he would be South’s most notable 1958 alumnus of the 20th century, 43 years before the Princeton vote?

That’s what the talk was about this week. It felt so good to us to find his name there. Johnny Gerhart died of cancer in July, 2003. We had hardly seen him in all those decades; he left Abilene, went to private school in Austin, then to Harvard and off on his international path of brilliance. But we didn’t forget him. We were among the first to see, somehow, the unforgettability that stayed with him wherever he went, among whomever he walked, from unschooled ninth graders to foreign kings. We felt included in a natural community with John at its center, the creator of the community, which is how, after his death, he was remembered by so many.

The eulogies and remembrances and stories were collected and now are maintained at the Website of “Alliance” magazine, “the leading magazine on philanthropy and social investment across the world." The first three tributes are from the president, the first lady, and the prime minister of Egypt. The rest, “Messages from friends and colleagues,” from all over the globe, scrolling down and down, are more informal and informative, filling in many blanks that our South Junior instincts knew were there.

Not a one of the 40 messages is from one of John’s South Junior classmates, a gap which I undertake to correct. Much of the affection is nothing new. “Always when we met again it was as if we were resuming a conversation that we had left off in mid-sentence.” Yep. That’s the way Johnny put us all first. “I have been lucky to know all kinds of wonderful, smart and original people,” says another. “But John was one of the very, very, very special ones.” No lie, as we used to say at South.

But he was also a collector of African art, and an expert bird watcher. I never knew that. He was also an expert storyteller, and I don’t remember that, but it makes sense. Many of his friends remembered John’s father, the Rev. Willis P. Gerhart, as anyone does in 1957-58 Abilene who met John’s father. There was no mistaking Rev. Gerhart’s intellect, or vivre, or fondness for good stories, or willingness to tell them. Being his son made Johnny mysterious. So austere a robed presence, commanding a towering white Episcopal church on South Sixth. Directly across from the church was a neighborhood grocery store, with wood floors and screen doors, owned by Eddie Baldwin’s father. Eddie was named “Friendliest Boy” in our poll. And just around the corner from these two lived Pam Oswalt, who was just gorgeous but, darn it, went to Lincoln Junior. That block on South Sixth must have been the closest thing to a vortex that Abilene had.

Now there are a couple of things about Johnny that the other messengers may not know. Wherever in the world he was, or whomever he was with, if Johnny saw a coyote, and called it a ky-yoat, he was only being true to his roots. Once a South Junior Ky-yoat, always a South Junior Ky-yoat. Secondly, a Ford Foundation colleague wrote about John and women: “His reputation for hiring smart, dynamic women was known throughout the Ford Foundation.”

When you went to junior high with Gena Jay (“Friendliest Girl”), Pat Wright (“Best All-Around Girl”), Crystal Ragsdale (“Most Beautiful Girl”) and Nancy Shoemaker (“Girl Most Likely to Succeed”) AND lived across the street from Pam Oswalt, you couldn’t help but take that appreciation forward. We haven’t forgotten Johnny Gerhart. And Johnny didn’t forget us.