FORMER PATTERSON PRINCIPAL INFLUENCED STUDENTS BEYOND SCHOOL HALLWAYS

 Nelson T. Whiteman died on Dec. 9 at age 77

T. Whiteman raised two children of his own, but there always seemed to be room in his family for more.

As principal of Patterson Co-op High School for 22 years, during the glory years of the school's groundbreaking vocational-study program, he opened his heart and his home to many of his students. Mr. Whiteman died Dec. 9 at a Columbus hospital of complications from heart surgery. He was 77.

Maryam Ahmad, of Patterson's Class of 1982, is one of Mr. Whiteman's adoptees. While she was in college, she spent her breaks and holidays with the Whitemans.

`I'm not his natural child; he didn't have to love me,' said Ahmad, who is an attorney in Chicago. `But he and his wife took me into their hearts, and that is a great gift.'

He gave more than just encouraging words. With his late wife Donna, his Stivers High School sweetheart, Mr. Whiteman helped some students pay their college tuition.

`My parents helped a lot of kids along the way,' his daughter, Vickie Nickles of Enon, said. `Scott (her brother) and I probably don't even know the extent of it.'

After he retired from Patterson in 1988, Mr. Whiteman's love of animals and the outdoors took center stage. An avid hunter, fisherman and a breeder of German Shorthaired Pointers, Mr. Whiteman became director of Sporting Breeds for the American Kennel Club. It was his job to oversee judges for the club's field trials.

Mr. Whiteman grew up raising homing pigeons with his father on Missouri Avenue, later doing the same with his son. He was living in an apartment he fitted out like a hunting lodge above his son's veterinary clinic and boarding facility in New Albany at the time of his death. True to form, he had `adopted' some of the younger staff members, offering support and guidance.

Ahmad, who is black, credits the man she called her `Pop' with showing her what true color-blindness means and driving her to exceed her own expectations.

`He dealt with me as a person, like we were the same,' she said. `I hope that I can embody that in my own life and pass it on to other young people.

`When you have someone like that behind you, how can you think of disappointing them?'

Nickles, a retired teacher whose oldest son is the third generation in the family to go into teaching, says her father has been an incredible role model.

`The older I get, the more I appreciate everything he did,' she said.