Mark Davis: With dry humor and generosity, Allan Saxe was an American original | Opinion

One of the first Allan Saxe columns I ever read was about me.

In the mid-1990s, the already long-respected UT-Arlington political science professor was a familiar media fixture as a guest on various radio shows and in the pages of this newspaper. His beloved Arlington was such a sought-after audience that both the Star-Telegram and The Dallas Morning News launched specific publications aimed at, and even named for, the city that sought its own identity and coverage, nestled between the dominating markets of Fort Worth and Dallas.

I had returned to my native Texas in 1994 to host shows on WBAP, which was relocating to Arlington after decades of rich Fort Worth history shared with the Star-Telegram. The Texas Rangers’ new ballpark was opening blocks away, and I learned early on the rich benefit of conversations with Allan, on and off the air, about Arlington and its history and so much more.

His appearances on my radio show led to my visits to his classes at UTA over the ensuing decades. As each semester began, I would get an email asking if I would come speak to his students in classes ranging from Texas government to constitutional issues. I would always ask what he wanted me to cover. His answer was always the same: “Whatever you want.”

So I walked into a variety of large UTA class auditoriums over the years, a sign of the popularity of his teaching. Before he would introduce me, he would riff with students (whom he always knew by name, even in large classes, even as the term began), issue a few quips about the headlines of the day, tell a self-deprecating story or two and otherwise establish the personal bond that is the cherished memory of countless students whom he enriched with his teaching gifts over the years.

Allan Saxe passed away Tuesday at the age of 85. An instant slideshow formed in my head, a cascade of images and memories of my years of visits with him in my world of radio, his world of classrooms or in countless personal phone calls and emails. His quirky personality and dry sense of humor were part of a package that contained a deep and brilliant mind, and a heart as open and vast as the Oklahoma vistas where he grew up.

Hired in 1969 in his 20s to teach at what was then Arlington State College, Allan started a journey featuring years of service not just to the students he loved but to his community. When I met Allan in 1995, his mother had recently passed away, leaving him roughly $500,000. He immediately began donating it to various charities, causes and scholarships, along with new structures and facilities, often with one condition: that they bear his name.

I asked him about this uniquely Saxe-like combination of selflessness and self-promotion. “I don’t really know how to do anything,” he told me. “If this money can go to people who actually know how to make communities better, make the world better, I’m going to give it to them.” And why the resulting Allan Saxe Park, Allan Saxe Parkway, even Allan Saxe pencil sharpeners in UTA’s University Hall? “Whatever I do, when I’m gone, people will know I was here.”

We surely will. And in that newspaper column 30 years ago, Allan kindly referred to the way I welcomed callers with diverse views in contentious times, a practice he always displayed in class. Even though I was blasting out talk shows on a 50,000-watt radio station heard across Texas and beyond, the end of his column focused on the pocket of the DFW area that was his heart: “Glad you’re in Arlington, Mark Davis.”

Today, times are no less contentious, and higher education has become a minefield where indoctrination can elbow out education. I’m sure there are instructors to be found with big brains, open hearts and a gift for the calling of teaching. But there will never be another Allan Saxe. He is an American original, a singular figure in the history of North Texas and in the memory of any student lucky enough to sit in his class over the years.

My blessing was to be his friend. Glad you were in Arlington, Allan Saxe. And in our lives in so many indelible ways.

This story was originally published June 20, 2024 at 10:11 AM.