English Professor Margie Netherton named Professor Emeritus at AC

Margie Netherton is an Alabama native whose 1999 job interview at Amarillo College fell on a tempestuous day with twin tornadoes menacing the city. Noting that most folks appeared oblivious to the threat, she resolved to just go with the flow.

“I found it remarkable that the people on campus didn’t seem concerned,” said Netherton, a professor of English who retired in 2020 after 21 fruitful years at AC.

“So,” she said, “I gamely waded through deep puddles in my high heels, my interview hairstyle blasted by the fierce winds, and I ended up being treated to real West Texas hospitality by future colleagues Pat Knight and Mary Dodson.”

That was the first of myriad fond memories she made at AC, yet more are still to come; for Netherton, who left her indelible mark not just on the Department of English and across the College, but throughout the community, as well, has been named AC’s 2024 Professor Emeritus.

In keeping with tradition, the Faculty Senate will sponsor a reception for Netherton at which friends, family, colleagues, former students, and well-wishers will have the opportunity to greet and congratulate the impactful professor.

The come-and-go event will be from 11 a.m. until 1 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 15 on the second floor of the College Union Building at the Washington Street Campus. Introductory remarks are scheduled to be given at 11:30 a.m.

“It’s certainly an honor and a surprise,” Netherton said. “There have been so many outstanding faculty members at AC – I feel privileged to have worked with them and learned from them.”

Netherton, who taught everything from English Composition I and Creative Writing to British Literature II, took it upon herself in 2004 to create Freelancer, a literary magazine that continues to this day to annually showcase the writing and artwork of AC students, faculty and staff. Beyond the classroom she additionally organized an alliance between high school teachers and AC faculty to exchange ideas about how best to help high schoolers transition to the College.

Of course, it was her interactions with students that sparked so many of her AC memories, “such as when I saw students really get into the literature we were reading and relate it to events in their lives and communities,” she said. “Or seeing students find their voice and become more skilled, confident writers.

“Or running into former students at stores and restaurants in town and having them greet me warmly and tell me how they never forgot some of the stories we read,” she reminisced. “Another great memory occurred after I taught Hamlet in Freshman Composition II, and a student told me that she had asked for the complete works of Shakespeare for Christmas!”

Netherton is herself an author. Her most recent book is Bearing Witness in a Broken World: Practices to Cultivate Wholeness (2023), a timely exploration of how people can function more healthily in the midst of social and political divisions and upheaval. Additionally, her book Moving Towards Joy: A Self-Care Workbook For Caregivers Of Loved Ones With Serious Mental Illness was published in 2018.

Netherton became so interested in mental health advocacy, in fact, that she not only helped re-establish a local affiliate of the National Alliance of Mental Illness (NAMI), but she became a certified NAMI trainer and has served multiple terms as president of NAMI Texas Panhandle. She continues to facilitate mental health support groups and classes.

An accomplished researcher, Netherton in 2019 unearthed a little-known story about how a Canyon, Texas man was largely responsible for publication of To Kill a Mockingbird. Netherton’s account of Harper Lee’s late 1960s visit to Canyon to confer with her literary agent, Maurice Crain, a resident there, was published in the July 2019 issue of Accent West. It details how Crain encouraged Lee to turn some of her short stories into a novel focusing on her childhood memories of Monroeville, Ala. He then helped her edit the tome and introduced her to a publisher.

“It was fun detective work unearthing all the hidden details,” Netherton said.

Since she retired, Netherton has become more involved than ever at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, where she serves as the Christian Formation Coordinator; two of her children have gotten married; her son Stephen graduated from AC with honors last May; and she and her husband Bill Netherton, also a professor of English who retired much more recently from AC (2024), have begun building their dream cabin northwest of Trinidad, Colo.

The roof has been on for a while now, and Margie says Bill will next be teaching her how to mud and tape the walls.