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Home Page for John F. (Jack) and Mildred B. Lamb |
Welcome to our web page. May we first supply you with a little biographical data? John was born in New York City, moved to Chicago and then to Dallas, Texas. He graduated from Sunset High School. Mildred was born in Quanah, Texas. She graduated from Quanah High School.
After high school graduation, we both went to the University of North Texas where we graduated with B.S. and M. Ed. degrees. We both taught high school mathematics at Sunset High School in Dallas, Texas.
After we were married, we moved to Dripping Springs, Texas where Mildred taught mathematics in the high school while John went back to school to earn a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Texas at Austin. In the summer of 1967, our first daughter, Brenda, was born in Austin.
After finishing his course work, we moved to Commerce, Texas (about 60 miles North-east of Dallas) where John began a 28-year teaching career at Texas A & M University at Commerce (formerly East Texas State University). Shortly after our arrival in October, 1968, our second daughter, Margaret, was born in Commerce. During that fall, Jack finished his dissertation and graduated from UT in May, 1969.
Later, when both of our daughters started school, Mildred went back to school and earned an M. S. degree in Computer Science from TAMU-Commerce. She then began a 15-year teaching career at Commerce High School and Middle School where she taught mathematics and computer science. We retired in July, 1995.
 | We are members of the First United Methodist Church. We are members of the Kitchen Sunday School Class. Jack is in the Methodist Men and is on the Outreach Committee. Jack also serves as webmaster for the church's web site and as editor and tape duplicator for the cassette tape ministry that takes recordings of the services to homebound members. |
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On October 20 and 21, 2001, we attended the 45th reunion of Jack's graduating class of 1956 from Sunset High School. On October 20, 21 and 22, 2006, we attended the 50th reunion of the class. Both were a lot of fun and we met up with several classmates we had not seen for many years. For more details about Jack's experiences in the public schools of Chicago, Dallas and Saco, Maine, click here. |
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On October 5, 2002, we attended the 50th reunion of Mildred's graduating class of 1952 from Quanah High School. To visit the class's web site, click here. |
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From October 31, 2005 to November 12, 2005, we took a cruise to the Panama Canal. To visit the web site about the trip, click here. |
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From July 9, 2006 to July 17, 2006, we took a tour with our grandson through the states of Colorado, South Dakota, Wyoming, Idaho and Utah. To visit the web site about the trip, click here. |
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From December 3 to 10th, 2006, we took a cruise with Mildred's cancer support group to Montego Bay, Jamaica, Grand Cayman and Cozumel. To visit the web site about the trip, click here. |
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Interests |
 | My field of interest in mathematics was and still is Euclidean Geometry. I taught the four geometry courses offered at E.T.S.U. many times. I have now published 29 articles in professional journals. In 1994, 26 of them were compiled into a book entitled Twenty-five and Counting. Let me know by e-mail if you would like to have a copy of the book. |
I attended several annual joint meetings in January of the Mathematical Association of America and the American Mathematical Society. I presented research papers at some of them. The last paper was entitled "A Chinese Zodiac Mathematical Structure" which was presented at the meeting in San Antonio in Janury, 1999. If you would like to look at a copy of the handout for that presentation, click here.
I was an active member of the Texas Section of the MAA from 1969 to 2008. I attended 40 consecutive annual meetings. I presented several papers at those meetings held at colleges and universities around the state. I was also the "official" photographer for the section meetings. To see the pictures I took at the meetings from 2002 to 2008, click here
After retiring in the summer of 1995, I taught a reduced load in the V.M.E. (Voluntary Modified Employment) program at TAMU-Commerce. I taught one course in the fall of 1995, and one in the spring of 1996. I left TAMU-Commerce in May, 1996 so that we could live closer to our children and grandchildren.
In the fall of 1996, we both taught part-time at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor - I in the mathematics department and Mildred in the computer science department. Mildred also taught some mathematics courses including an off campus class in statistics. After about two years of that, she gave it up to spend more time with our grandson, Tristan.
I stayed on in the mathematics department teaching part-time for 5 years until May, 2001. I took two years off to travel and enjoy full retirement but decided to go back to teaching part-time at UMHB in the Fall of 2003. It wasn't as much fun anymore, so I decided to resume my full retirement.
My hobbies include astronomy, photography, web site design and model rocketry. I have an eight-inch reflector telescope equipped to take photographs of stars, planets, nebulae and comets. Two excellent magazines on this subject are Astronomy and Sky & Telescope. I am a charter member of the Planetary Society and the Cousteau Society.
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I have been an avid space buff since the beginning of it all in
the late 50's. I have been to the Space Center in Houston several
times, most recently in March, 2001. I visited Cape Kennedy in 1973
where I saw the launch of an unmanned rocket and the roll-out of Skylab
3. I visited the cape again in 1983. |
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The following year, we went to another Space Camp Parent-Child week-end at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida where we each built model rockets and launched them. Our team won first place in rocket launching. Early in the morning of the second day we were there, we got up at 6:00 a.m. to see a space shuttle landing. We were very far away, so it was just a speck in the sky, but we were able to hear the sonic booms just fine. Our visit included a tour of Cape Kennedy where we saw the gigantic Vehicle Assembly Building and several rockets on display. |
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In 1999, we went to the Cosmosphere Museum in Hutchinson, Kansas by train, plane and rental car. There is an IMAX Theater that was showing T-Rex, a film on dinosaurs. We saw everything from V2 rockets and buzz bombs to the latest space station modules. There was a room where one could bring blank video tapes and have NASA footage copied onto them. I got several clips to add to my collection. |
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In 2006, I returned to the Space Camp in Huntsville along with my younger grandson, wife and daughter. My grandson and I went to camp while my wife and daughter toured and shopped Huntsville. The camp activities included many of the ones I did with my older grandson 13 years before. We built a rocket, launched it, recovered it and brought it home with us to fly agian and again. To see a web site of our adventures at the 2006 camp, click here. |
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I am also interested in science fiction - especially Star Trek. I have an extensive collection of models, books, books on tape and videos from the movies and the five TV series. |
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From 1975 to 1985, I was the faculty sponsor of a Star Trek Club at TAMU-Commerce. Club members and I attended several Star Trek conventions in Dallas where we met the stars of the show and collected memorabilia. We also put on a couple of our own conventions and sponsored several Space Awareness Days on campus. One of our guest speakers was Jay Apt who went on to become an astronaut.
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In December, 1979, I had an interesting experience involving the first Star Trek movie and a new theatre in Commerce. Somehow the manager heard about me and the Star Trek Club and called me to discuss my dressing up as Mr. Spock and cutting the ribbon at the grand opening of the theatre. The drama department at TAMU-Commerce agreed to fix me up with some ears and makeup and my wife managed to put together a blue costume, so I did it, complete with a police escort to the theatre. |
On June 16, 2000, I had a wonderful adventure in Las Vegas, Nevada. A Hilton Hotel there has an attraction called: Star Trek: The Experience. To take a tour of it, click here.
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Interests |
I taught mathematics and computer math for the Commerce Independent School District at Commerce High School before becoming the director of the computer lab at Commerce Middle School.
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