Generally I am not short on words or opinions. I must confess, however, that I am at a loss as I begin to outline the legacy of someone as accomplished as my friend and brother, Terry Tekippe.

Perhaps I can begin by writing about how our relationship started, and more importantly, why it endured over a period of 50 years. Terry was the older brother of Bernard, a classmate of mine at St James Major Grammar School. In 7th grade I learned Bernie was a ham radio operator. An unexpected discovery about Bernie occurred after I got to know him. He was anything but the bookworm or nerdy type that I had imagined would be into technical things. Actually, he was a big strapping guy and quite physical. He truly earned the moniker “Moose.” Through Bernie I met his brother Terry and also Stephen Sinclair, another classmate I had previously written off as dull and uninteresting. That too was a totally inaccurate perception (and another story.)

At this time I also was developing an interest in ham radio. Usually when I went to the Tekippe house on Verbena street to learn more about my new hobby, I would see Terry buried in a text book and totally oblivious to my presence. I learned Terry was also a licensed ham, and interestingly, he fit my perception of hams being nerdy “hobbyiststs.”

It turned out that Terry was more the design guy and Bernie the construction wiz. I marveled at how they disassembled old TV's, wound their own power transformers, and created ham radio rigs from all the parts. I soon realized that I could learn a great deal from these enterprising and talented guys. Thus I became a regular fixture at the Tekippe house, both after school and during summer vacations.

In time, I got to know the entire Tekippe clan; most of the eight children were my juniors. As a side note, all the Tekippe boys did their traveling on bicycles and after joining them on several rather long outings, I decided a motorbike was more in tune with my personal style.

Time passed, and Terry, and also Bernard after 8th grade, found themselves in the Seminary to become Catholic priests. Ham radio was a great way to stay in touch.

I must confess I never shared their view of religion and was always questioning anything pertaining to faith in general. I was not an atheist but certainly an agnostic and today more of a pantheist in my orientation. Bernie once told me that seminarians were advised to avoid friends with views like mine. I still chuckle at that thought.

Through Ham radio we continued to remain in contact, but lives change and time marches on. I got married, Terry went to Rome, and Bernie left the seminary to become a teacher. Bernie eventually married one of his students, later divorced, took up residency in Atlanta and remarried. It was not until Terry returned from Rome that we connected again while I was living and working near the major seminary on Carrollton Avenue. Terry became a regular visitor and dinner guest. By this time, Steve had graduated from UNO, entered the computer programming field and also became a frequent visitor.

Terry eventually accepted numerous assignments that took him south of the border for months at a time and always upon his return would dine with us and share his stories. Terry was forever learning languages and continuing his education. He earned two PhD's when most of his colleagues struggled to gain one. Terry had a photographic memory, was a math wizard, and a self taught computer programmer. Over these years, Terry often visited or met us for dinner at a new untried or highly rated restaurant. Terry always loved a good meal.

In 1979 I found myself owning and operating a flying school at the local airport. Terry popped in one day as I was lamenting the burden of FAA mandated record keeping. He suggested I should let a computer do all the work. My reply was "too expensive". He asked if I was aware that personal computers were now inexpensively available, computers that he could teach me to program. I then asked Terry if he had any interest in learning to fly. Thus I began to teach Terry to fly, and he taught me programming. With his tutelage I had the first flying school in the south using a PC to keep records. Terry took his pilot exam with the local FAA and became a duly licensed private pilot. It was during this dual teaching period where I learned how gifted Terry truly was. It was effortless to instruct Terry and he mastered the theory and practice of aviation very quickly. I was honestly impressed as I had struggled by comparison to earn my own wings.

Terry eventually settled into a professorship at Notre Dame on Carrollton Avenue in New Orleans. Terry fashioned himself to be a scholar and researcher in church matters, not your typical parish priest. He loved to travel overseas and did so at every opportunity. He cut deals with his boss to accept half salaries and to sub for priests taking holidays on weekends. This gave him more opportunities to take time off to travel.

He often used the time away from home to write highly technical books on theology. Like Mozart composing music, Terry wrote in longhand without corrections. We know this because he eventually hired my wife Marilyn to transcribe his works for eventual submission to publishers. Unfortunately he died before publishing his last and twelfth book, "The Priority of Primordial Knowing". Many colleges currently use his textbooks in their theology classes.

While attending the North American College in Rome, Terry encountered a Jesuit theologian and instructor that was to change the direction of his academic pursuits. Terry considered Bernard Lonergan to be a modern day St Thomas Aquinas both as a thinker and a theologian. When Lonergan died, leaving several unpublished manuscripts, Terry decided to make it his life's work to decipher and expand on Lonergan's ideas. Terry eventually published several highly technical books on Lonergan, and with my help as a Webmaster, maintained a Bibliography of Lonergan's works on the Web.

Terry renewed and continued his interest in ham radio whereas I pretty much moved all my communication interests over to the Internet. Terry always liked a challenge and became interested in ham communications using the absolute minimum signal power. It was called QRP. Nothing delighted him more than to succeed with a contact at great distance on only a half watt. Over the last year I helped Terry build two transceivers that he successfully used for contacts. We were working on a third that is incomplete.

Ten years ago my wife and I moved to a barrier island 25 miles south east of New Orleans. It was called Lake Saint Catherine. Terry loved the place so much he decided to learn how to sail and purchased a small sailing rig called a Sunfish (which he kept at our camp style home). He never failed, unless bad weather interrupted, to go sailing once a week. On one such excursion he failed to return at the agreed time of 5:30 pm. By 7:00 pm night had set in and I became worried. I called the Coast Guard who at first seemed only mildly concerned until I lied and told them this priest was the right hand man of the local Archbishop. Within 10 minutes we could see helicopters all over the lake. I decided to call his sister Margaret and inform her of what was happening in case it turned out bad. Just as I phoned Margaret and began trying to explain, Terry paddled up along side our peer. He explained he got caught in "Irons" while sailing in the Rigolets Pass. Irons is a term sailors use to explain the sudden loss of wind to propel the vessel. He had to paddled his sailboat 4 miles back to our camp. He further stated that he went east on a whim, instead of west as he originally planned. I told the Coast Guard to search the western end of the lake. After that experience we made sure Terry took a two way radio before leaving.

Over the course of our relationship, Terry and I discussed many religious questions. He, never convincing me, nor I him, of any belief or doctrine. He relished calling my reasoning "sophomoric" and I enjoyed retaliating by giving him the moniker "Religious Breath.” I can honestly say that not once in our friendship did Terry ever show signs of doubt about his own faith. Terry regarded his faith as very precious to him and I always respected him for that as well as marveled at it.

Terry was concerned about the degree of homosexuality in the seminaries and sadly found himself on opposite sides with other priest he had known for years and thought he knew reasonably well. He was for tightening up the rules of admission to seminaries when others were more inclined to be tolerant. He reasoned that allowing a homosexual to the priesthood on a promise they would never practice was akin to asking a smoker to go cold turkey, something that he deemed highly improbable. He told me of a conversation he once had with a gay priest who contended he took a vow of celibacy, not chastity; implying he had forsaken marriage but not gay sex. I could sense this issue wasn't going away and would always be troubling for Terry.

Terry sometimes seemed to fly above the normal radar most people have. Occasionally we ate at various ethnic restaurants where we felt caucasians were definitely not welcome. Terry contended he never observed it. He always saw the best in people; something I could not do - especially when the help was slamming plates, omitting silverware and serving short portions or cold food; etc.

We eventually relocated, fulfilling my wife's childhood dream of living on a farm and also escaping the constant danger of living on the coast during hurricane seasons. We moved to a small farm in the rolling woods of Pearl River County, MS. I was a bit concerned that Terry might not want to drive the 80 miles to visit as frequently as before. But, Terry enjoyed driving and continued his weekly visits on his off day.

Terry also enjoyed solitude, and when not at Notre Dame or here at Bob Tail Farms, he could be found in Covington where the Archdioceses maintained a guest house for visiting prelates. He fondly referred to this facility as "The Villa". I once asked him why he made the effort to drive the hour and thirty minutes it took to reach the place and he replied that if he stayed at his apartment at Notre Dame, they (seminarians?) would be finding extra things for him to do. I found his reply humorous and possibly true, but it was obvious to me that this quiet, tranquil, out of the way location was conducive to his love of writing.

We spent so much time with Terry that frequently he would observe me getting a tongue lashing from my wife after some failure of mine to do a promised task. Terry would simply blurt out a number like "576." That was his way of saying how many times he was grateful to have chosen the celibate life! We always burst out laughing. Terry was also fond of coining phrases over the years to describe some of his observations. Like "muddling" - his adjective for explaining how some people got "off track." And the "confetti theory" - that is, if you had excess money it should never be horded but tossed about like confetti in joyous exuberance.

Terry immediately sized up the potentials for recreation here in the back woods of Pearl River County and thought it might be time to rekindle his past experience as an equestrian. Well, actually a former donkey rider in the hills of Guatemala. He tried to interest us in buying horses and horseback riding. If the animal is too large to carry, I am personally not interested. Miniature goats yes, horses no. Yet Terry still wanted to try horseback riding and there were many nearby ranches that offered such activities. After failing to arrange an appointment on his visiting day (a Friday at the time) he made one for the following morning and rather than return to New Orleans Friday evening he could just stay overnight in our guest quarters and head out to the Horse Ranch in the morning. That night Terry experienced what he described as a very bad case of indigestion. By morning he looked rather drawn but insisted he would be fine in a few hours and ready to ride. He was, and he did. When he returned that afternoon he claimed to have enjoyed the experience but did not think he would be interested in doing it again or on any regular basis. I cannot help but wonder if his indigestion was a signal of something more troubling.

My last email from Terry, while he was in Messongh, was apparently just hours before he collapsed while taking one of his famous walking excursions. In his message he complained that the room where he was staying was excessively hot, and he stated that he was given an electric fan to help deal with the heat.

One of our last eyeball conversations (Ham slang for person to person chat) was dealing with the relative medical risks of visiting these out of the way overseas locations in the event of a medical emergency. Terry replied that he had just been to the doctors for a checkup and was determined to be A-OK with exception to high blood sugar which could be the onset of diabetes type two. He said diet would keep that in check. Otherwise, Terry reported nothing dealing with cardiac vascular problems. I recall asking Terry how long he intended to continue traveling and his reply was "as long as I am able".

Terry was also a dutiful son, visiting his 93 year old mom weekly and enjoying dinner with his sister and her family in Chalmette. I find it interesting that many parents today are out living their children. One must wonder if the modern world is not a more stressful environment for those still active in it.

I would like to think God called Terry to Heaven because He needed his skills there more than those of us who Terry left behind.

Terry was a very modest person. When the church raised him to the rank of Monsignor I think he was both flattered that he was recognized, yet embarrassed to be in a spot light. Over the years, when introduced, he preferred to be known as Terry rather than Father or more recently, Monsignor. To my knowledge, Terry had zero aspirations to ascend in a position of church authority. He felt the responsibility would take too much time away from his research and love of writing. However, he made no bones about his declaration of being a church scholar.

Terry, unlike my wife and me, was not a pet person. There was never a dog, bird or fish in his life. This was probably the only difference between us. We enjoyed many many pets over the years, from monkeys to pet mice. Terry would just roll his eyes or shake his head. Possibly it was because Terry enjoyed his freedom and mobility and did not want to be tied down. I do recall his mentioning how he was once chased by a big dog while walking near Notre Dame. Perhaps this event biased him.

Trying to adequately summarize Terry's life as a person and a priest would, in my opinion, confound the most ardent observer. He excelled at so many things. One of his legacies as a priest is certainly the many books he published, helping to clarify catholic theology. This includes the many seminary students he taught that honed their priestly skills from a true genius. As a person, Terry easily made friends wherever he met people. His constant bright smile and classic "That's Great" replies are known to many. Terry was also generous to a fault. If he knew you needed help or you asked him for help, he was ready with assistance.

Terry and I shared a lot of history together, from flying adventures, ham radio activity, programming, theological debates, sharing as confidants, and many discussions of both local and world events. In addition, along with his brother in law Frank, we helped Terry maintain and acquire his cars.

I loved Terry as a brother. To me he was no less. For us, his legacy will be remaining forever in our hearts and memories. He will be missed.

11/24/06 - Father Terry does Miracles, Believe it or Not