Biography of Dr. Cecil Barr Currey

Born on a Nebraska farmstead in 1932, Cecil Barr Currey graduated from high school in 1950.  He completed degree work for his Bachelor of Arts at Fort Hays in January of 1958 and for his Master of Science in January of 1959.  For several years he served as a Congregational Christian minister, but in September 1962, Currey resigned his pulpit and entered doctoral study at the University of Kansas where he was awarded the Doctorate of Philosophy in 1965.

Dr. Currey has taught at several colleges and universities in Nebraska, Florida, and Hawaii. His students praised his classroom offerings, and he received numerous teaching awards. Following his retirement as a full professor in 2002, Currey was granted the title of Professor Emeritus at the University of South Florida in Tampa Bay.

Over the course of his career, Dr. Currey researched and published some twenty-five books of history, religion, and philosophy. His main emphasis, after initial success in publishing works about Benjamin Franklin (1968-1973) was in the field of military history, including the Vietnam War. His books made international headlines and were chosen by book clubs, awarded prizes, and translated into German, Spanish, Chinese, French, Portuguese, and Vietnamese.

Dr. Currey pursued a second career in 1964, when he was ordained as a clergyman. The following year he was commissioned a first lieutenant chaplain in the Nebraska National Guard. He later served in the Florida National Guard before transferring to the Army Reserve. He retired a full colonel in 1992.

Research and military service have allowed Dr. Currey to visit dozens of overseas countries and the love of travel remains strong both with him and with Laura Gene (Hewett) Currey (A.B., 1959), whom he married in 1952. Dr. Currey donated the handwritten Benjamin Franklin letters and two copies of the Pennsylvania Gazette to Forsyth Library between 2004 and 2005.

A Letter from Dr. Cecil B. Currey

I was a very poor, uninspired student in grade and high school. When I graduated in June 1950, out of a class of 32 students, I ranked 16th. It was a poor showing. Then I went to work at common jobs:  a ranch hand, a dishwasher, a waiter, a power line construction worker, a short order cook, a member of a crew upgrading railroad tunnels on the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad.  I would have continued on jobs like that except a friend convinced me to go back to college with him.

I enrolled in Friends Bible College (now called Barclay College) located in Haviland, Kansas, just a few miles south of you on Highway 183. I finished a year, barely, and then transferred to Fort Hays. At the end of my sophomore year I entered the Army Medical Service Corps and served there for two years.  In my junior year of college I met the most wonderful teacher: Dr. Samuel Martin Hamilton, professor of philosophy. He it was who turned my life around.  He taught me to enjoy studying, to enjoy learning things--and what he taught filled me with pleasure. Along with other good teachers, now gone to be with the ages, I discovered that learning can be both challenging and fun. Most importantly, I learned that I could excel.

And so in January 1958 I graduated with a major in history and another in philosophy. In January 1959 I was awarded a Master's degree.  In 1964 I was granted my Ph.D. from Kansas University. The more I studied, the more I enjoyed it. The more I enjoyed, the more I wanted to share with others what I was learning. And so I began writing books and articles.  Ultimately, by the time I retired I had written some 25 books, and many, many articles.

I met and interviewed famous people:  Richard Nixon, Barry Goldwater, Vo Nguyen Giap, the head of the CIA, generals and admirals, prisoners of war, veterans of the Viet Nam conflict, and more. When it came time for me to retire, I wondered what I would do with all the materials I had collected, and to my mind came Fort Hays State University. That school had made me what I became. Without the encouragement and support of that school I would never have achieved much.

And so I gave all my thirty years of materials to Forsyth Library at Fort Hays, including my two Benjamin Franklin letters. I had written two books about him, and I had the opportunity to purchase those letters, and now, decades later, it seemed that FHSU was the perfect place for them. They had helped inspire me to write two books about Franklin. Maybe seeing them and hearing about them might inspire other young people to also achieve great things!

Since giving them to FHSU, they have already inspired people at the college to put together this project and display. They have already had a desirable impact. May they continue to do so and may you achieve far more than you have yet even been able to dream.

Sincerely,

Dr. Cecil B. Currey, U.E.