Alumni Remember Dr. Charles Slagle
BVU graduate celebrated as a ‘Renaissance Man’ among Beavers
One of Buena Vista University’s most beloved chemistry professors, Dr. Charles Slagle, passed away March 6 at Methodist Manor in Storm Lake, leaving behind a trail of influence, memories, and laughter that stretched from the Science Center to the Great Wall of China and back.
“I went on multiple J-Term trips to Europe as well as Puerto Rico with him,” says Dr. Casey Williams ’96, a biology and chemistry double-major who serves as Chief Scientific Officer at Avera in Sioux Falls, S.Dak. “Every trip with him also involved an excursion on the side. Charles and I, along with Dr. Todd Schwendemann ’96 went to Africa once (while visiting Europe) because Dr. Slagle had never been to Tangier before.”
They crossed the Strait of Gibraltar, played golf on the continent of Africa and Dr. Slagle bought his wife, Mary, two Moroccan carpets.
“I was the strong back elected to carry the carpets back to Europe,” Williams says with a laugh.
A native of Whittemore, Charles graduated from Buena Vista in 1960 and returned nine years later to begin his work educating students in chemistry and related sciences. He would remain a fixture with the Beavers until 1999, working to develop the computer science program, co-authoring a textbook in the field. He wrote a grant to purchase BV’s first computer. He helped develop the international travel program at BV, an initiative that would go on to change the lives of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of BVU students.
He directed a summer English program for students from Japan. He served on Faculty Senate and was Dean of the School of Science for a decade.
In 1977, he started the women’s golf program. Dr. Susan Jacobsen ’80, Professor in the Department of English at California State University at Fullerton, remembers that part about Dr. Slagle the best.
“I transferred from the University of Iowa to BV in 1977 and took classes that summer as a precursor to my full-time enrollment,” she says. “I was eating lunch with Dr. Slagle on the steps of the Science Center, and he turned to me and said, ‘You and I should start a women’s golf team here at BV.’”
And so, they did. The first team consisted of Jacobsen, Lori (Peterson) Darrow ’80, LeAnn (Henrich) Millar ’80, Cynthia (Cramer) Gage ’81, Brenda Weirick, and Connie Goodchild.
“It bugged Dr. Slagle that women didn’t have the same opportunities as men,” Jacobsen says while giving insight into Slagle’s desire to establish a program. “I also think Dr. Slagle wanted to play more golf and see some other courses. That was part of it!”
That January, Jacobsen, a chemistry major at the time, found herself on an experiential learning excursion in Europe with Dr. Slagle and Dr. Jon Hutchins, BVU Professor of Chemistry Emeritus.
“Charlie and I played at Wentworth Golf Club (in Surrey, England) and at the Rome Country Club on that J-term trip,” she says.
Susan Slagle-Boyd ’91, who played for her father, remembers a tournament at Loras College in which the Beavers finished higher than a squad from the University of Notre Dame.
“My teammates and I wanted to get into the van and head back to Storm Lake, but we had to wait for Dad, because he was telling anyone who would listen (and some who wouldn’t) that his team had just shot better than Notre Dame,” Susan recalls.
Described as a Renaissance Man, Dr. Slagle played multiple musical instruments, including cello in the Cherokee Symphony and saxophone in Storm Lake’s fun Zauerkraut Band. He was a licensed electrician for a time, a part-owner in the Emmetsburg Publishing Company, an author and historian for Lake Creek Country Club, a genealogist, sports fan, a visitor of six continents, and a speaker of eight languages.
He played piano, talked investment strategies with friends and students, and always stopped at The Bohemian Café when driving through Omaha.
“He’d show up in tiny restaurants overseas where nobody spoke a word of English and it seemed as if he knew everyone in the place,” Williams says.
Above all, he was Mary (Crowley) Slagle’s devoted husband for nearly 64 years and the proud father of Susan, Margaret “Peggy” Slagle, infant son Karl, and daughter Ellen Slagle Christie.
The family contributed memorial gifts made in Dr. Slagle’s memory to the BVU women’s golf program and to a fund established to help students make ends meet during travel experiences as undergraduates. His family says the inscription on the plaque Dr. Slagle received upon earning BVU’s distinguished Henry Olson Alumni Award in 2009 describes him appropriately: “Innovative Educator, World Traveler, Renaissance Man.”