Lynnda Seyfried Greene

Greetings John,

Enjoyed meeting up at the class reunion last week, and exchanging memories of Mr. Boulding's Honors American History class, and WGHS. Inspired anew, I took another swing at searching out his obit this week and finding it, thought I'd send it along. https://www.newspapers.com/clip/19956738/st_louis_postdispatch/

I recall how stricken I felt on the first day to find myself in a class with all the "smart kids." Went right downstairs to the counselor to beg out of the class. "This is a mistake. I don't belong here. Please take me out!" He wouldn't, and of course that class proved among the most formative forces in my life. Thinking back on those turbulent sixties years, I've marveled at his restraint in handling that class, in that setting. Scholar to the core, he led us to understand in his measured, thoughtful manner, this country's true trajectory as much by the nobility of his character as by the text he used, and those long musing, probing discourses. Drake Pike, on the school tour; noted that we could all sense the first day that our lives would be changed for knowing this remarkable man. Certainly the values he instilled have remained a personal and professional through-line for me. How often I've wished I could have told him this, and that I left the Mormon church (this involved a "trial" and excommunication) some years later for more progressive pursuits.

Also looked up our textbook, The Growth of the American Republic, by Henry Steele Comminger, whom Boulding admired. Think I wrote reams of notes from that book for his always challenging exams, and snagged a copy of it years later. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Steele_Commager He'd chuckle at your "Marxist" moniker.

Great to see you, and congrats on your extraordinary career and work for The Hunger Project. Boulding would be so pleased :-)

All best,

Lynnda (Seyfried) Greene