Bob was my professor in Systematic Botany and Dendrology at Vanderbilt in the late '60s. That's only about 15 years after he was a POW, of which I was not aware. The designation "mentor" was not a thing then, but he was certainly my mentor. I spent many hours in the herbarium lab with him mounting plant material, even after I was working on an MS at MTSU. After I was in med school in Memphis, I had dinner in Bob and Mabel's home many times when I was back in Nashville. We kept up with each other for years, but I never made it to Cairo to see him. Of all of the dozens of teachers that I've had in my life, Bob is the one that I consider the best, and he was my favorite. He was a great teacher and a great man.