Long-time Kaua‘i resident Dr. Richard “Mickey” McCleery died Oct. 13, 2009, at age 87. Those closest to him recognized several main interests in his life: his family, educational innovation, social studies, personal and intellectual freedom, and basketball. He pursued all
Long-time Kaua‘i resident Dr. Richard “Mickey” McCleery died Oct. 13, 2009, at age 87. Those closest to him recognized several main interests in his life: his family, educational innovation, social studies, personal and intellectual freedom, and basketball.
He pursued all of these, including playing half-court basketball on the court behind his Anahola home, until about a month before he died. He would loft an accurate 10-foot hook-shot with either hand against younger players, then, most importantly to him, look toward the sidelines to verify that his “bride” of 59 years, Althea, had indeed witnessed the shot.
Born in Buffalo, N.Y., on Aug. 16, 1922, Mickey grew up in northern Ohio during the Depression years, leaving home to work on farms to avoid a difficult home life, getting kicked out of six high schools, then cajoling a girlfriend to act as his legal guardian so he could enlist in the Army at age 17.
Transferring from Nebraska to Peal Harbor, Mickey witnessed the first bomb drop and the subsequent attack on Pearl Harbor. In characteristic analytical fashion, he had expected the war. He realized that Japan, shut off from war materials would have no alternative but to attack and gain access to oil.
After the war, Mickey earned his GED and enrolled at UH where he was highly influenced by a teacher there who also inspired many Hawai‘i political figures, including Rep. Patsy Mink and Sen. Daniel Inouye. Having no inkling at that time of his future academic achievements, Mickey would have been content to be a janitor, he said, sweeping the halls at night and sitting in on classes by day.
In his junior year, he met fellow student Althea, daughter of an island minister. They were married the next year.
Mickey earned his BA at UH, his master’s from Syracuse University, then a Ph.D. in political science from the University of North Carolina. His dissertation on differences between North Carolina and O‘ahu prisons — two different approaches to prison management — earned him the distinctive Birkhead Award for outstanding research of that year.
Before coming to Kaua‘i on sabbatical to help a friend shape Kaua‘i’s new community college, he taught at Michigan State and at Antioch, a small liberal college. But teaching political science in the context of Kent State, anti-war demonstrations and the free speech of the ’60s was not working.
On Kaua‘i, Mickey opened a learning center which he hoped would confront real community problems, provide an alternative learning environment and be an inspiration in miniature for what KCC could become.
Located across from Otsuka’s in Kapa‘a in a dilapidated bottling plant which Mickey personally renovated, the center brought in nationally recognized poets, held readings and community discussion groups, and provided a haven for those who didn’t quite fit the traditional learning environment.
He was fond of talking philosophy with students while shooting baskets out back, or teaching reading to high school drop-outs using motorcycle repair manuals as reading material. Later, at Kaua‘i’s District Office of the DOE, he taught “home school” for island drop-outs and pregnant girls, raising the graduation rate in that program some ten-fold.
Mickey and Althea’s son, Dr. Robert McCleery, follows his father’s footsteps. With a Ph.D. from Stanford, Bob’s a professor at the Monterey Institute of International Studies and shoots a very accurate jump-shot, honed in his high school years at Kapa‘a.
Mickey’s basketball buddies plan to continue the Wednesday afternoon half-court matches in his honor at the Anahola courts.
