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Dr. John Kent Folmar I, emeritus professor of history from California University of Pennsylvania, is described by those who know him best as feisty, candid and gifted, with an analytical mind.

"Folmar was no sycophant. He always spoke up and never turned his back on academic quality," said Chuck Thomas, Ph.D., emeritus professor of English at Cal U. "He showed great courage during the faculty's vote of no confidence against the university president, Angelo Armenti Jr., in 1998. And when Armenti tried to change the name of the school to Eberly University in 2001, John Folmar spoke out.

"Despite that, he was one of the most gentlemanly persons I'd ever met during my 36 years at the university."

Folmar, originally from Alabama, developed an interest in history during eighth-grade classes with a favorite teacher.

"I had this teacher, Miss Day, and she taught Alabama history," Folmar said. "I still have her picture and I have her obituary, but I haven't been able to find her burial site."

When his Air National Guard unit was activated during the Korean conflict, Folmar spent one year in the Philippines. When he came home, he started college and received his undergraduate degree at Samford University in Birmingham.

"While I was getting my master's degree at night I worked for a business firm in Birmingham during the day," said Folmar, the divorced father of four grown sons. "My first teaching job was in the white slums of Birmingham, and I had to teach every subject. That was the best year of my teaching life."

A year and a half later, he accepted a position at Jones Valley where he taught eighth and ninth grade U.S. history.

"I thought I was in hog heaven," Folmar said.

He soon moved onto University Military School in Mobile where he taught history for two years. By the summer of '63, he was working on his doctorate and working as a graduate teaching assistant at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa.

"I was hired as an assistant professor at Morehead State University in Kentucky in 1966. By 1968, some of us were campaigning for Eugene McCarthy for president. I was a screaming liberal and the administration at Morehead didn't like it. I knew I would have to leave," he said.

Folmar, who cites the term "senior citizen" as "completely ridiculous" and will not discuss his age, came to Cal U in 1969, where he taught a survey class and general courses, including Civil War history.

He was named chairman of the department in 1976. Although he said he was unceremoniously kicked out of that position in 1980 for his outspoken viewpoints, he believes his four years as department head were not wasted because he was able to institute new classes such as western Pennsylvania history and Reconstruction history for Cal U students.

"He did quite a bit of work helping the students. He wrote guidebooks to help them and I was always impressed with that," Thomas said.

Ralph Charlton, originally from Granville, Washington County, and now of Farmville, Va., graduated from Cal U with a master's degree in 1973. Folmar was his adviser and mentor.

"I think he is esoterically brilliant," said Charlton, 56, a federal manager at the Social Security Administration, and an adjunct professor of history at Southside Virginia Community College. "His general history students were afraid of him because he would get carried away with what he was talking about. Folmar is an enigma because he's a product of a southern environment but he's completely liberal. He's a very independent thinker to the point that he rails against everything. Yet, he's a great guy."

Folmar served as one of the groomsmen in Charlton's wedding.

"And he did not bring a gift. I guess his gift to me was being in my wedding," Charlton said, laughing. "He's the only professor I had that I stayed in touch with over the years. He has a very analytical mind and when he makes up that mind no one can change it."

During his student days, Charlton introduced his professor to the calming influence of canoeing on the Mon River. Their first outing was memorable.

"Would you believe he walked up along the inside of the canoe to hand me something and we both ended up in the river," said Charlton. "He lost a pair of good glasses and complained to me about it for 15 years."

Folmar's obsession with the river's history didn't start with that quick dip but with a ride down Route 88 to Greensboro, Greene County where the Monongahela River Buffs Association originated.

"When I was driving I saw an old school building with the door open. Someone had sketched some river scenes that were displayed in the school. It was the River Buffs and I joined the organization shortly after," said Folmar, who is president of the Buffs and editor of their newsletter, "Voice of the Mon."

The nonprofit Monongahela River Buffs Association was founded in 1979 by a small group of river enthusiasts, the late Bill Young, the late Ernie Gabler and Bill Bennett. Seven years later, the MRBA moved to Second Street in Monongahela, where the organization's museum officially opened on July 4, 1986. Its collection includes artifacts, models and memorabilia that trace local history through the flatboat and keelboat age in the early 19th century to the steamboat era and today's diesel towboat age.

George Hutchko, of Monongahela, first vice president of the Buffs, met Folmar in 1986.

"John Folmar is well informed about the history of the river," Hutchko said. "He's been to quite a few places in Pennsylvania and in other states talking about the river. People are taken with him and with his knowledge. He's quite a character."

Throughout his career, Folmar published articles and research papers, lectured at conferences and served on a number of committees and organizations. Last year, he wrote an introduction and index for "Monongahela City Anniversary, 1792-1892," which he had reprinted through Yohogania Press, of Monongahela. The book contains lectures written and published by Chill Hazzard, editor of the Monongahela Valley Republican in 1895 to commemorate the founding of Monongahela City.

In May, Yohogania Press published Folmar's "Drifting Back in Time: Historical Sketches of Washington and Fayette Counties, Pennsylvania, including Monongahela River Valley." The book is a compilation of his previously published newspaper articles that depict local and river transportation history in the Mon Valley. Some of the 42 articles he used in the book were published by the Tribune-Review.

"Drifting back in time seems to be the story of my life," said Folmar who dedicated the book to Young and Gabler, the late founders of the Mon River Buffs.

He is working on a history of steamboats built in California, Pa., and a packing boat history of the Monongahela River.

"I have four or five other projects going, and I still give talks to civic clubs and historical societies. I'm going to read a paper at the Gulf Coast Historical Society in Pensacola, Fla., soon, but the real thing is transportation history, especially of the Mon River in the 19th century. That's what really lights my fire now," Folmar said.

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