Stuart L. Wheeler (2006)

Stuart L. Wheeler, a lifelong Virginian, received his undergraduate education at the College of William and Mary, his master's from Vanderbilt. He attended Johns Hopkins University for two years of graduate study. Following two years of high-school teaching in York County, Virginia, he was appointed to the faculty of the University of Richmond in 1967 and ultimately chaired the Department of Classical Studies and was a president of the Virginia Classical Association. Wheeler was noted among students for his Bill Cosby sweaters, the fervency of his political views, his dry humor, rollicking trips with students to Greece, and in class a particular stress on correct Latin pronunciation. In the words of a colleague, Wheeler believed that "environments need to be nurtured to foster culture." Wheeler expressed this in many ways, from his furnishing a comfortable and attractive classics library to serving on Richmond's Commission of Architectural Review (1972-82) to rescuing (as program director) the university's Urban Practice and Policy Program to running his own antiques shop, Distinctive Consignments, Ltd. In the 1970s, he saved the mummy of Ti Ameny Net from destruction and stored it in the trunk of his car for a year until it could go on permanent display in university's Ancient World Gallery. He died on August 25, 2006, at the age of 68 of lung cancer.

Additional Obituary