Books

Mary T. Benton, Marshall Terry's daughter, remembers taking her father's class, a prospect that initially left him less than thrilled.

"I convinced him that it was a good idea for me to take the class, but he didn't want anyone to think I was getting preferential treatment," she says from her home in Atlanta. "I said, 'No one will know who I am,' and we agreed that a teaching assistant would grade my papers. But he also didn't want any of the other students to know what I was his daughter.

"So, one day, I walked into class late. He wheeled around and said, 'I will not tolerate excessive tardiness!' And before I could catch myself, I blurted out, 'Oh, Daddy, I'm so sorry!' "

•

Her father "thrived on teaching and writing and being involved in the life of the university," she said. He was also "the biggest fan of the football games." She fondly remembers him standing up, yelling his trademark line – "Take heart, Ponies!" – even if SMU was losing 65 to 3. "You can do it, Mustangs!" was another Terry encouragement.

So, it saddened him tremendously, she said, when the school was caught cheating, with SMU incurring the first and only NCAA "death penalty." It resulted in the school not playing football for two seasons during the 1980s.

•

Tracy Daugherty, who graduated from SMU IN 1976 and who has since published four novels and two short-story collections, will read from Mr. Terry's work at the symposium. He once called his former professor "the most humane teacher I've ever had. He helped not only with the craft and art of writing but was, as much as anything, an encouraging presence that helped keep writing in perspective.

"When you're young and ambitious, you want to make your mark right away, but Marsh was very good at pointing out that writing is part of life and often not the most important part. He always kept me grounded."

•

Former student Joe Coomer, who will also read from Mr. Terry's work, is one of many who became protégé to Mr. Terry's mentor, saying "Marsh had a great impact" in helping launch a career whose nine books include seven novels. "He's one of those all-encouraging souls that every writer needs to get somewhere in the beginning," says Mr. Coomer, "and I was lucky enough to get one.

"He has a large, pure heart," says Mr. Coomer, who describes his former professor as treating students, "even if they were 18 or 19, as though they were his age. He had complete respect for young people, which, at times, it's hard to find in professors."

Mr. Coomer once said he doesn't know whether his own novels would have become "as loving or as sentimental as they are had I not met Marsh. I always wanted to be like him. I wanted to write about people who were good and true. Most of my characters are likeable, and Marsh encouraged that."

•

Mr. Terry spent years teaching a course called "the Myth of the American West." His daughter – that's the class of his she took – said the readings included The Virginian, The Big Sky, The Ox-Bow Incident, Lonesome Dove and his own novel, Ringer .

James Hoggard, who teaches at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls and who will moderate the symposium, says Mr. Terry has "a wonderfully intelligent sense of the West. He has a vast knowledge of literature written in the western United States. But what I think is even more interesting is his sensibility. I'd say his depth and breadth of understanding is superior to an awful lot of people who you consider the American West. He understands all the mythic patterns but does not fall into the clichés that so many do."

•

Ms. Benton says her father was "a great dad. I'm definitely a Daddy's girl and my sister is too. He has the most incredible sense of humor. He can make you laugh out loud till you're snorting – and he'll snort along with you."

Michael Granberry