If you have ever spent time with Rick Buice, you know that he’s a great story teller. And why shouldn’t he be? After a 44-and-a-half-year career at Darlington, he certainly has his fair share of stories to tell.
Buice was hired in September of 1969 to teach math and science. Fresh out of college, having recently earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Chattanooga (now UTC), he was only 20 years old.
“Alumni realize now that I was very young, but back then they still thought I was old,” laughed Buice, adding that he still has his employment contract from his first year of teaching.
His path to Darlington was one of coincidental connection to a man who would serve as future president of the school from 1971-1979. Gordon Bondurant, who had taught at McCallie School while Buice was a student there, briefly worked in the University of Chattanooga’s placement office. During Buice’s senior year, Bondurant suggested that he apply for a job at Darlington. The chemistry major with a minor in physics and math was more than qualified.
“During college, I worked at Fillauer Chemical, a surgical supply establishment, where I helped mix chemical solutions and handle specials orders,” Buice said. “They offered me a job after I graduated, but since I knew Gordon, I decided to come to Darlington.”
At Darlington, Buice was one of seven teachers in the science department, and also taught math. He chuckled as he recalled his first visit to campus for his interview.
“When I walked into the lab area of the science classrooms, then located in South Hall, all of the chemicals, except the acids, were just sitting on the shelves in alphabetical order,” he said. “The first thing I saw was a jar of arsenic. I couldn’t believe it! That was taken care of later.”
During his tenure, Buice has taught UPC (unified physics and chemistry), chemistry, AP chemistry, physics, algebra I, environmental science, computer science and AP computer science. He also earned his M.Ed. from the State University of West Georgia.
“Unfortunately, it was only after college that I finally realized that learning new ideas and understanding how things work was actually a lot of fun. I wanted to pass this on to my students,” Buice said. “I tried to push, encourage or cajole them to do their best and learn how to think. By using a variety of means, I tried to gain an insight and understanding of their foundation and abilities, and then plotted a course to move them forward from where they began.”
Once, a student asked Buice what would happen if he threw a chunk of sodium in the lake. His response? “Let’s find out.”
“Sodium is very reactive,” Buice said with a smile. “I got an inch-and-a-half by an inch-and-a-half cube of sodium and sliced off the edges. With a pair of tongs, I lobbed it out into the middle. Not only did it blow a plume of water about 30 feet into the air, but the sodium splintered and came down in a shower of little pieces, each of which blew smaller plumes into the air. It was a sight!”
Buice has also served as assistant head of dormitories, director of intramurals, Honor Council advisor, technology coordinator and chairman of the technology department. In fact, it was Buice and a couple of other early pioneers who truly laid the groundwork for technology at Darlington.
“In 1978, our science department head Lee Hamilton purchased a Radio Shack TRS-80 computer, and I thought we could use it to help run lab data,” Buice recalled. “At this time, calculators had barely come out. I was able to write increasingly complex programs that would run increasingly complex formulas for chemistry and physics. Instead of spending 15 minutes working out the answers with paper and a slide rule, my students could key in their data and get the answer in a matter of seconds.”
He quickly added that he still has his old bamboo slide rule in his basement.
In the 1980s, Darlington installed its first network for six computers (which had a 20-megabyte storage capacity), began using Apple II computers, and purchased a high-speed dot matrix printer that printed 60 letters a second. With these then-state-of-the-art tools at his fingertips, Buice wrote several programs to handle student grade reports, which had previously been compiled via typewriter.
“We tested it on the middle school first and were able to print all the grade sheets and reports in about four hours, rather than three or four days,” said Buice, who worked with now-retired CFO Bob Rogers to improve the system. “By 1986, we were doing all grade reports this way and we had started teaching elementary programming courses. In the late 80s, I actually came out of the classroom for a little while to teach word processing to the administrative assistants. IT was a different world.”
The internet began to change the face of Darlington in the early 90s and, by 1997, current IT Director Stefan Eady was hired to build the school’s first official website.
“Stefan and I tried to take the DOS-based programs I had written to run the grades and make them work via the website he had built,” Rick recalled. “Integrating them was a chore at best and we finally decided that it just wasn’t going to work. That’s when our intranet was born. If you look at the grading programs at other schools, we just blow everybody away. We’ve always been ahead of the curve with technology.”
Buice lived on campus for 32 years, eventually marrying the former Fran Formby (’76) and having two daughters of his own, alumnae Kristi (’05) and Elizabeth (’08).
For the last five years, Buice has worked as an advancement officer with a focus on alumni relations.
“If you look at the number of courses I have taught, you can assume I like change; it keeps people fresh,” he said. “In this new role, I have learned that there are many pieces to the Darlington puzzle. I’ve really enjoyed reconnecting with former students and seeing the many successes they have made in their careers.”
Buice, who retires at the end of December, says he won’t be a stranger and still plans to tutor chemistry and physics.
“I’m a bit anxious about a 44-and-a-half-year habit of getting up and coming to school,” he laughed. “I know no other. I tell people I’m a bit of an anomaly. I’ve been married to same woman 32 years and had the same job for more than 44 – not many people can say that.”
