John English inspired generations of students to care about words and writing. He advocated for historic preservation. He traveled the world, curious about customs and cultures, and wrote articles and books about his experiences. And he amazed his friends and family by recovering from stage four cancer in 2012. He lived life on his own terms until a week before his death.
“I saw him at our neighborhood Christmas party, and he seemed stronger than ever,” said Margie Spalding, who was friends with English for 50 years. “Even when he was sick, he kept up with people. I’ll miss him.”
John Wesley English, 83, died of pneumonia on January 3 in Athens. The son of Raymond Wesley English and June Mourglia English, he spent much of his childhood in Monett, Missouri, home to a community of Italian protestants, the Waldensians, who had fled Northern Italy and Catholic persecutions. John delighted in this history, said his wife Karen Smith, “because he liked to think of himself as an outsider.”
In 1962, he graduated from the University of Tulsa, where he edited a weekly suburban newspaper. After college, English joined the Peace Corps, landing in Malaysia.
After returning to the United States, English earned a master’s degree from Columbia University then a doctorate from the University of Wisconsin in Madison. There, he wrote film and music reviews and edited copy for the Wisconsin State Journal. In 1970, he came to Athens to teach magazine writing and arts journalism at the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism, where he stayed until his retirement in 2000.
“He made me realize that journalism wasn’t going to be like working on the assembly line at Westinghouse, which is what I had been doing,” said veteran journalist and former Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Bill Hendrick. “It was going to be fun. He inspired me and made me want to be a reporter.”
English sent his students to interview visiting musician Richie Havens. He had them review “Harold and Maude,” kind of an artsy movie, Hendrick said. Jim Tremayne, editor of DJ Life Magazine, said English “taught me and others to play to our strengths and always retain our curiosity.”
While at UGA, English also held visiting professorships in Hong Kong, Malaysia and Tokyo, and he taught for more than a dozen summers in France and Italy. In the mid-1990s, he and a UGA business professor launched the National Arts Journalism Program to help mentor mid-career arts critics.
English religiously read the daily printed version of The New York Times, cover to cover, and other newspapers online. A student who house-sat for him one summer while he was abroad threw away piles of the Times, not realizing that English planned to read them all when he returned — English was most upset.
“John loved literature and journalism, and couldn’t believe it when other people didn’t,” said colleague Leara Rhodes. “If you didn’t read and get involved with the stories and the characters and the films and the words and the songs, you weren’t really alive. He was always trying to pull those stories out.”
In the 1980s, English got involved with historic preservation in Athens. He helped save eight houses from destruction and, along with others had a house slated for destruction relocated. He also served as president of the Athens Clarke Heritage Foundation and became something of an expert in Athens history, delighting in touring visiting friends around town.
A prolific writer, English wrote and edited six books, three feature film scripts, multiple documentaries and Asian media studies for academic journals, and several hundred articles for magazines and newspapers, including travel pieces for both the AJC and The New York Times. For Fodor’s, he wrote travel guides for Malaysia, the Cayman Islands and Georgia. He co-wrote a book about Dean William Tate, a beloved UGA administrator.
He also enjoyed making art, and he helped start the local Athica Art Gallery. His son Evan remembers an art installation that was in the Eyedrum Gallery in Atlanta before it moved to the Tate Student Center at UGA. To commemorate all the people lynched in Georgia, 552 empty nooses hung from the ceiling, while Billie Holliday’s “Strange Fruit” played over a recording of the names of the victims.
“It was meant to invite a strong response, and it did,” said Evan English.
Journalists Doug Monroe and Charlie Hayslett met English regularly for lunch in the Cobbham neighborhood in Athens, even though English could no longer eat food by mouth. Monroe marveled at how English always had something interesting and insightful to say — about current events, politics and journalism. But what Monroe valued more than English’s intelligence and range was his kindness: for a number of years he looked after a former UGA colleague who fell on hard times, helping him get the care he needed as he declined, finding a burial site and even writing his obituary.
“I don’t think people know he did that,” Monroe said.
A memorial service celebrating John English’s life will be held in the spring.
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