Our Sustainable Future - CSU, Chico

One person can make a mighty difference, influence that travels the world like a rolling wave. A story about Paul Persons is instructive.

Some years ago I was in Wales at a travel writer confab, attending a swish dinner sponsored by the British Tourist Authority. An editor of a well-known California magazine, was sitting at my table.

You’re from Chico, she said. I have good friends there. Do you know Marcia Briggs and Paul Persons?

I do, I said. I do know them. Small world! They were neighbors of mine.

Neighbors! She chuckled. Paul and Marcia tell one of the funniest neighbor stories I’ve ever heard.

Oh? I said.

Oh yes, she said, laughing. These neighbors of theirs had a pet pig, and apparently the pig fell in love with their dog. The pig would escape its pen just to hang out over at Paul and Marcia’s. They’d come home from work and there it would be, snuggled up with their dog on the front porch.

She started gesturing, to dramatize this oddball love story. She didn’t seem to notice my expression, frozen in disbelief. All others at the table, travel writers and editors representing Canada, Mexico, and all coasts of the United States, were entranced.

Soon enough the pig became a hog, of course, a rather large one—well over 200 pounds—still determined to live over at Marcia and Paul’s place. Even at that size the hog was an uncanny escape artist. It would terrorize them in the middle of the night, too, snorting and plowing through their yard, rooting around beneath their house and rattling the plumbing.

She was nearly in tears—hysterical—as she tiptoed up to the story’s finale, not noticing my knowing yet wan smile.
           
I already knew how the story ended. I knew because the story was about my ex’s impossible pig Eleanor—Eleanor of Aquitaine, named for that wily monarch and brilliant strategist. If only we’d had an island fortress to keep our Eleanor captive.

Queen Eleanor finally drove Paul and Marcia to the edge of madness.

One night around 3 a.m., in the midst of a howling storm, someone pounded on the door—thunder erupting from our mild-mannered neighbor Paul, as it turned out. I cracked open the front door to see him standing naked in our front yard, a bearded Viking dressed only in rubber boots and a ladies’ rain hat. There was a crazed look about him. Steam shot from his mouth like dragon’s breath. Raging sleep deprivation had clearly taken over—no time for clothes—as he stood there in the icy rain, fierce and fearless, backlit by lightning.

Eleanor! he shouted, to make himself heard above the wild and whirling storm. You must do something about Eleanor. Or I will! He ranted for quite some time, though I could grasp only twigs of his total tirade: “need sleep” and “prepare for court” and “mindless hunk of bacon.” I myself was speechless.

Paul and Marcia eventually wrested endless pleasure from that low point in neighborhood harmony. During the next several decades the Eleanor story—slightly improved with each new telling, I suspect—would go on to become one of their all-time favorites. I was merely one among many in their global audience to enjoy its telling.

Friend and Family Man
Paul Persons told great stories, and he starred in countless others. To appreciate Paul’s joy in living was one reason that one thousand or so friends, fellow faculty, students, and other admirers showed up at the Bell Memorial Union on the last Saturday in January to celebrate his life.

Close friends and colleagues came to support his family in their shock and grief over his sudden death.

Everyone present tried to make peace with a personal sense of loss as they came together to honor a man who was a power of nature, a man who managed to make a powerful difference.

Family friend and fellow attorney Jon Luvaas set the afternoon’s tone by observing that we were all there to celebrate Paul Persons and “his love, his passion, his dedication, and his integrity.” That someone like Paul, “a force of nature,” could suddenly be gone served to remind us “how fragile our life here is.”

An athlete, outdoorsman, and adventurer—swimmer, surfer, cyclist, skier, hiker, backpacker, kayaker, pilot—Paul Persons shared his passion for whitewater with family and friends. In his raft RPM Max (“because that’s how he lived, RPM max!”) Paul was always “the rock-solid core of the group, carrying the beer, the wisdom, and the necessary equipment for a safe and wildly fun trip.”

In addition to being a “co-conspirator” in various battles to keep urban development out of sensitive environmental areas, Luvaas remembered Paul Persons as a river buddy, “smiling, laughing, and roaring his way down the river.”

“Paul Persons was a born leader and a teacher,” said Mikkel Aaland, a friend since college. “He was not, as many people think, born with a beard.” When Aaland first met him Paul looked more like the clean-shaven god Apollo than Zeus, and, for tuition money, was hawking sandwiches to fellow students under the business name Bad Food.

“He always spoke softly, perhaps a vestige of his Southern birth, but he carried a big stick. You really didn’t want to make him angry.” Injustice made him angry, enough to steer him toward law school. But even there Paul insisted on his own truth. Aaland laughed to remember the first line of his graduation speech, from Shakespeare, delivered deadpan to a stunned crowd: “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.”

Aaland was particularly happy to be with Paul for one life-changing moment—the night his friend met the love of his life, Marcia Briggs: “Sparks flew, the queen and the king were reunited, and it felt like destiny. Perhaps it was destiny.”

Long-time colleague and early law partner Dane Cameron observed with admiration that Paul Persons lacked lawyerly restraint, and as a result “suckered me into the most dangerous stuff I ever did,” be that taking cases no one else would touch or fronting fees for expert witnesses. His favorite legal term was “bullshit,” generally taken to mean doing the community wrong. Anyone perceived of perpetrating it was doomed.

“But as much as he loved this community, he was incredibly independent,” Cameron said. “How can you be so independent and accomplish so much?”
 
“I’m not here to say goodbye. I’m here to say thank you. This guy had a great life, and I’m happy to have known him.”

Two of Paul Persons’ former students, Noelle Ferdon and Dylan Smith, expressed their deep appreciation, as did singer-songwriter Bill Oliver of Austin, Texas, who sang “The Whale,” one of Paul’s favorite rafting tunes, and also shared an original song celebrating the “big burly man with a big burly grin.”

Paul’s brother and three sisters shared loving—and telling—insights. Brother Bob Persons, for example, noted his “MacGyver Syndrome,” a reference to the 1980s TV show and its endlessly resourceful protagonist: “He could take a piece of duct tape and a paperclip and make an engine.” Sister Bonnie Persons shared her wry regret “that he died in a hotel room of an apparent heart attack rather than the way we thought he’d go out, as a candidate for a Darwin Award.”
 
In a short letter included in the program son Ben said to his father: “. . . You have taught me so much about how to live a good, honest, and exciting life. . . . My heart aches so badly, but I must remember that we are the lucky ones.” Daughter Teresa stepped to the podium to say: “I didn’t realize how many people he touched. This room is full!”

Professor and Sustainability Icon
Many people knew Paul Persons as family man, activist attorney, and all-around adventurer. But few knew how tirelessly he worked to establish the principles of sustainability as a core concern of California State University, Chico and—his most recent priority—the entire CSU system.

The day of Paul’s death CSU, Chico President Paul Zingg expressed the immensity of the loss.

“Our University and the Chico community have lost one of our truest colleagues and finest citizens,” Zingg said. “Paul was the conscience of our faculty, ever vigilant, ever grounded in the dearest values of the academy, ever committed to the greater good. He taught us through a passionate commitment to truth and justice, to service and civility. He brought us together, he moved us forward, he made us better. He will be terribly missed and always remembered.”

During the memorial Zingg spoke again about Paul Persons’ valued contributions. Beyond the particulars, “He taught us through his smile, because he was honest.”

“Our greatest testimony to Paul,” Zingg concluded, “is to be the place he’d hoped we could be.”

“How does one rope a whirlwind or contain a mountain?” asked Scott McNall, provost and vice president of academic affairs at CSU, Chico.

“Paul was a big, strong, passionate person who lived a large life, a life filled with purpose and meaning.”

Furthering sustainability was a primary purpose for Paul Persons, McNall pointed out, and the University committed itself to its sixth strategic priority with his considerable support.

(Still a very new element of CSU, Chico’s strategic plan, the sixth priority reads: Believing that each generation owes something to those which follow, we will create environmentally literate citizens who embrace sustainability as a way of living. We will be wise stewards of scarce resources and, in seeking to develop the whole person, be aware that our individual and collective actions have economic, social, and environmental consequences locally, regionally, and globally.)

In an earlier interview McNall noted that at the time of Paul’s death they were working on a new strategic plan for the entire CSU system, to promote environmental literacy, social justice, and sustainable economic development.

Paul Persons understood that protecting the environment assumed a commitment to environmental justice, or working to achieve justice for everyone. “In a world with limited resources,” McNall added, “sharing and building community are essential if we are to survive as a people.”

“Paul understood that a vital democracy and sustainability are the same thing.”

Honoring “Paul’s Vision”
Paul Persons graduated from CSU, Chico in 1973 with a degree in political science. He then attended the New College School of Law in San Francisco, now the country’s oldest public interest law school. While attending law school he also worked for the federal service program VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America), and received a scholarship from Howard University to assist people with low incomes. Paul returned to CSU, Chico in 1979 to take a faculty position in political science. He loved to teach, and pursued it passionately for 27 years.

During the January 27 memorial President Paul Zingg and Provost Scott McNall presented Marcia Briggs, Paul’s wife, with a certificate honoring him as professor emeritus of political science at CSU, Chico.

In addition to his regular teaching duties, Paul Persons served as supervising attorney for Community Legal Information Center (CLIC) at CSU, Chico, overseeing the Environmental Advocates, County Jail Law Project, and Workers’ Rights programs. Off campus he was a strong advocate for the Feminist Women’s Health Center and the reproductive rights of women and families. He also did considerable pro-bono legal work on behalf of the environment. As former committee chair for the Legal Services section of the California State Bar Paul worked to make legal services available for people who couldn’t afford them. He also advocated for prisoners’ rights throughout the state.

Paul was also fully engaged in academic issues, elected by his peers to serve on the executive committee for the statewide Academic Senate. Most recently he championed sustainability as a statewide CSU priority. 

“Paul’s vision,” according to family members and university colleagues, was actually a specific goal. Before he retired he wanted to see that every student in the CSU had the opportunity to learn and practice the principles of sustainability. “Imagine the positive impact of 417,000 students going out into this world with this knowledge!” he would say.

The family has established a memorial fund to further Paul’s vision of a systemwide CSU emphasis on sustainability. A scholarship may be included in these efforts. Contributions may be sent to:

The Paul Persons Memorial Fund
c/o the University Foundation
California State University, Chico
Chico, CA 95929

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