The legendary Randall R. Rustad, teacher of high school history and government, master of one-liners, collector of dirt. Mr. Rustad (for I will never in all my life feel comfortable referring to him as "Randall") was so much more than just a teacher. The gymnasium at Fargo Shanley High was packed with hundreds of teary eyes, as we collectively mourned the loss of a man who touched more people that I suspect he ever realized. And although he has now been officially laid to rest, I find my thoughts continue to dwell on him. His passing has brought to light so many memories, and they seem to be floating around in my brain like the pages of an old newspaper caught in the wind, occasionally catching the light and bringing either a smile to my lips or the prick of tears to my eyes.
What was it about this man that was so special? I doubt that hundreds of people will show up to tell stories at my funeral. For Mr. Rustad, they came out in droves, both in person and on social media. Every single student came armed with a story about passing Rustad's dreaded mandatory oral exams, or participating in one of the many class pranks that were played on Rustad, year after year. He was everyone's favorite teacher, but why? He was strict, and commanded respect. (Seriously. You don't mess around in Rustad's class. I fell asleep in government once. In the front row. When I woke up and realized that Rustad's lecture was still in progress at the podium directly above me, I felt that I had narrowly escaped certain death.) Yet he was hilarious and quirky. (He drank Tab. TAB. Where does one even find a case of Tab these days? In my entire life (post-1990) I believe the only place I ever saw a can of Tab for sale was in the vending machines at Shanley. And the only reason they stocked it was for Mr. Rustad.) He was jovial, and passionate about both his students and his work. Having taught government, history, and drivers ed at Shanley for nearly thirty years, it takes a special kind of dedication to display the same intensity with every class, year after year. History doesn't change, yet Rustad was able to cover the same material again and again, never failing to convey its importance, even the one-hundredth time around. Any teacher can regurgitate material, but Rustad possessed a rare quality in that he made students want to learn. Not that we had a choice, as we WOULD be learning the material, one way or another. I remember my very first day of class with Rustad a million years ago, when he announced that, "You WILL be learning each and every state capital, and you WILL be learning the 27 constitutional amendments, because I'll be damned if any student is going to graduate this high school without knowing their rights. Not on my watch!"
Even now, days after the funeral service, I find myself preoccupied with memories and thoughts that have resurfaced since Mr. Rustad's death. I keep seeing his grandchildren, seated at the funeral. Little bodies squirming in their parents' laps, short little legs dangling over the edges of chairs. I never thought of Mr. Rustad as a grandfather before. I went to school with all three of the Rustad children, so it stands to reason that they are all now grown up with children of their own, as am I. But the Mr. Rustad in my mind is still the young man of many years ago, with the future laid out as a path at his feet, as it was for all of us back then. It seems a cruel irony that after decades spent teaching other peoples' kids how to drive, Mr. Rustad's own grandchildren will one day take the wheel without him there in the passenger seat bellowing, "Use your mirrors!" Watching those kids during the funeral service, I wondered if any of them had ever been to a funeral before. Could they comprehend the impact that their grandfather had on the hundreds of people around them? Looking around the Shanley gymnasium, I saw classmates of my own from the late 1990's, as well as younger faces from the classes of 2000's and beyond. I saw parents, some of whom were former classmates of Mr. Rustad himself. I saw faculty and coaches, both current and previous. And of course, there were several members of the clergy seated in a row underneath one of the basketball hoops, and the casket, front and center at the free throw line. It was quite the gathering.
My senior year of high school, my family traveled to the Black Hills. Knowing Mr. Rustad's fondness for gathering souvenir dirt from historical sites (Civil War battlefields were his personal favorite), I scooped up a chunk of earth from Will Bill Hickock's grave on the legendary Boot Hill. I secured it safely inside an plastic film canister and brought it to school as a gift for my favorite teacher. Not wanting to look like a brown-noser, I left the dirt in my locker until such time as was opportune to deliver it without painting myself a suck-up. It sat on my locker shelf for the remainder of the school year. On our very last day of class in the spring of 1998, as the entire senior class was a manic panic of cleaning out lockers and counting down the last few hours of our high school careers, I grabbed the dirt and tossed it to an idle classmate. "Hey, go give this to Mr. Rustad for me!" She did as instructed, and that was the last thought I had regarding that little container until recently. Reminiscing about it now, I wonder if that dirt ever made its way into Rustad's esteemed private collection, or if he even knew that it was from me? I will never know. But every time I visit a famous landmark or a historical site, I remember the man who boasted so proudly of his extensive and fabulous souvenir dirt collection.
Lastly, my most vivid personal Rustad memory. In our senior economics class, we were assigned a "stock market project". (I should mention here that I truly hate economics. I only took the class because Mr. Rustad taught it.) We were to invest a specified amount of fictional money into our choice of stocks, and over a certain period of time, we were to buy/sell them as we saw fit and record the outcome. Having much more important high schoolish-type activities to attend to, I put off my work on the assignment until the last minute. I had already mentally selected my stocks, so it was the simple matter of going back to look up what they had been worth on the date that we were to have begun our initial "investing." This gave me the distinct advantage of knowing which stocks would do well and which ones tanked. I decided to scrap my original idea, and instead to invest in a pharmaceutical company that, the week before, had announced that they had perfected a new drug for cancer patients. In other words, I cheated. Their stock went through the roof in a matter of days. Cha-ching! I believe a made just over twenty-three thousand fictional dollars. That should be good for an A, right? Unfortunately for me, Mr. Rustad decided to post a list of everyone's stock results in class. In order. Biggest earner on top, biggest losers at the bottom. And there I was, right there at the top of the list with my $23k in earnings. The classmate listed below me had earned a just few hundred bucks, so my cheating couldn't have been more obvious. Next to my name, in parentheses, were the words, "Inside Trading." Well played, Mr. Rustad! I was totally busted, but Mr. Rustad never said anything to me about it. On our last day of class, I stole that sheet of paper off the board and I know that I still have it secured somewhere among my high school keepsakes.
The mark that Mr. Rustad left on his students is rare. A fond memory shining brightly through the darkness of those angsty high school years. I wonder about my own small son. Will he be lucky enough to have a teacher like Mr. Rustad? Perhaps yes, perhaps no. Either way, Mr. Rustad may be gone, but his legacy isn't lost. It lives on inside of me, and every other student who was touched in some way by this wonderful man. WE are that legacy.
