Smith: Say what you will, Dr. D did it his way

Thirty years ago, my colleague Gaye LeBaron described Peter Diamandopoulos, the president of Sonoma State University from 1977 to ’83, as sesquipedalian.

I had to look it up, too. It means given to using long words.

That was indisputably true of Dimo, a native of Crete who studied at Harvard and taught philosophy at Brandeis before taking the helm at what was then Sonoma State College, or Granola U. He described his resolve to make it a truly distinguished liberal-arts college with ardor and many syllables.

Diamandopoulos has died in Manhattan, 32 years after state college trustees forced him out of SSU for failings that included favoritism in hiring and dismissals. Fourteen years after that, in 1997, the New York State Board of Regents ousted him as president of Adelphi University on Long Island amid allegations he’d been dictatorial and allowed the school’s finances to crumble as he spent money like a king.

Sesquipedalian, yes. And from his arrival at SSU through his inglorious departure from Adelphi he was described variously as erudite, tireless, visionary, volatile, shamelessly optimistic, demanding, a martyr for high standards, arrogant, profligate, despotic.

Our Dr. D was 86.

MESSAGE FROM MARIA: Just got off the phone with the remarkable Maria de Los Angeles at Yale University. You may recall she’s the artist who was 12 when her parents slipped into California from Mexico with her and her siblings.

Maria labored to learn English and achieve. After thriving at Elsie Allen High she was accepted into ArtQuest at Santa Rosa High. She went on to SRJC, then the Pratt Institute School of Art in Brooklyn.

She’s 26 now, and in two weeks will graduate from Yale with a Master of Fine Arts. As if that weren’t exciting enough, there’s all of this:’

Yale selected her to receive the esteemed Blair Dickinson Memorial Prize. Also, she has been hired to teach color theory at Pratt Institute for a year. And ... she’s preparing for her first professional exhibit, a solo show in May at Front Art Space in Manhattan.

Maria asked that I convey a message to the many people in Sonoma County who assisted and encouraged and believed in her throughout what was a fairly abysmal childhood.

She said, “I just want them to know I’m grateful.”

YOUR SON TURNS 50 and walks in the door to celebrate that though life hasn’t been easy, it has brought you bushels for which to be grateful.

It’s especially true for Janet Pyne of Oakmont. Harkening to April of 1965, she said, “When I was giving birth I heard the doctor say, ‘Oh, my God.’?”

The boy born to her and her late husband, Daniel, bore the effects of spina bifida. The Pynes were told the child might not live an entire day.

Little David survived, but doctors told his folks he would likely never walk. Fifty years, 33 surgeries and a Herculean degree of resolve and determination later, David Pyne walks - not easily, but no longer with braces - and he drives a car, owns a home, cheers his Oakland A’s and enjoys his work in customer service at AT&T.

“Don’t tell me what I can’t do,” he said at Janet Pyne’s kitchen table. “I may do it differently, but I’ll get it done.”

His mother glowed.

Chris Smith is at 707-521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @CJSPD.