I learned on Friday, September 18, 2020, that Dr. George McFarland "Mac" Luckey had died the previous Tuesday, September 15, 2020, at the age of 85 at his home in Morehead, Kentucky. He had been born on March 21, 1935, in Paris, Tennessee, where he grew up in the family hardware store. Mac, as he was known by everyone who knew him was the retired Director of the Morehead State University Academic Honors Program which had previously been eponymously named in his honor as The George M. Luckey Academic Honors Program. He had been employed by Morehead State since 1961and had been the director of the honors program from 1990 until his retirement in 2004. Mac had also served for many years as a professor of philosophy and chairman of the philosophy department at Morehead. Mac was many things, a brilliant and compassionate professor, a loyal supporter of the university across many areas, a nationally respected professor of philosophy and an equally respected expert on academic honors programs and their administration. After his retirement, he and his beloved wife Sue Luckey wrote a textbook entitled College Portfolio for Success, a textbook for freshman seminars. It is truly a shame that Mac did not write and publish more books in a variety of areas including philosophy, education, and honors education in particular. He was a genuinely brilliant man, yet he was also very low key and humble in his interactions with everyone he met. Mac and Sue married after they met at Morehead and had no children. But because of their devotion to their academic careers and their students, Mac is mourned by hundreds of those who took his courses, completed the Academic Honors Program, or simply knew him as a person who helped them in other ways. He literally spent his life making the world a better place, both through his own work, and through the works of hundreds of people he influenced in his 85 years.
I entered Morehead State University as a non-traditional freshman student in the fall of 1995 at the age of 44. In my first semester on campus, I was selected to carry the Olympic Torch in 1996, was elected as the incoming president of the campus non-traditional students' organization, and managed to achieve a perfect 4.0 on my grade sheet. As a result, I received a letter from Mac inviting me to interview for the Academic Honors Program just as did every other freshman who was not already a member of the program and who had achieved a first semester 4.0. Unlike nearly every other non-traditional student, I set up an interview with Mac and actually attended it. As a result, I was admitted to the Academic Honors Program beginning in the fall semester of my sophomore year. Despite the fact that I was involved rather heavily in the non-traditional students' organization as an officer, I realized rather quickly that I was much more at home in the company of the students and professors in the honors program which required the completion of four required courses and two seminars for successful completion. The courses were sequential and Mac always taught Honors 101 which was focused on Greek and Roman philosophy and literature. The other students in the program were about 19 or 20 in average age and I was old enough to be their father. But in that program, both from the students and professors, I was always treated as just another student in the program and it was the best thing that happened to me in my five years at Morehead. Classes in the program were taught in what was nearly always a seminar style and open, active, vibrant discussion was encouraged. It was a "no holds barred" kind of education among a group of students most of whom had come to college after spending 12 years in public education at the top of their classes. Many, if not most, of the students were on full scholarships and would attend some form of graduate school. Many of those I knew are now doctors, lawyers, professors, and scientists. It was not education for the timid. I was working 40 hours a week in Lexington, Kentucky, as a second shift detox counselor at the Hope Center, carrying a full academic load including one honors course each semester, living in West Liberty, Kentucky, and driving a thousand miles a week. Somehow I survived and completed both my degree in social work as the outstanding student in that department and also completed the academic honors program. But it took me five years to do that. I never asked for special consideration in the program and none would have been given. I repeat that it was the best thing that happened to me at Morehead State University.
I got to know Mac Luckey quite well as a student in the program and actually delivered 4 papers at Kentucky Academic Honors Round Tables, 2 papers at Southern Regional Honors Council Conferences, and 1 paper at the National Honors Council Conference. And this was not exceptional work in the program. Nearly every student in the program did as much and often more. The year I participated in the National Honors Council Conference 16 students and professors at Morehead State participated. The program prepared me for nearly every other future success I have achieved in the 20 years since I graduated. I might have achieved as much without having been a member of that program but it would not have been nearly as easy without the preparation the program, Mac, the other professors, and the students of the program gave me for both graduate school and life.
The last time I saw Mac Luckey, I bumped into him and Sue at Wal Mart in Morehead and found Mac sitting in a bench at the front of the store waiting for Sue to check out. I stopped to talk to him and learned that he was fighting the rare disease which would eventually bring about his death. He was not all morbid, sad, or self-piteous in our conversation. He was taking just as he had taken everything in his life, head on, fearlessly, and with no holds barred. We had a good conversation and I knew as I left Mac that day that it might well be the last time I ever saw him. But I was not sad. I felt blessed, just as I always had been, to know that I had been given a few more minutes in the company of Mac Luckey.
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