safety a wounded comrade. While doing so, he got shot by machine-gun fire in the thigh, leaving a 9-inch-long scar and rendering his left leg shorter. For his act of courage and selflessness he was awarded the US Army Purple Heart Award for Valor in Service. Papa was bullheaded, stubborn, determined, persevering, domineering, authoritarian, dictatorial. He was Mr. Nice Guy, Mr. Popular, Mr. Smiley, the original “Mr. Suave.” He was a bundle of contradictory personality traits that, taken together, depict a man with character, a passionate and driven man, capable of dreaming big dreams and acting boldly to realize them. All these traits and quirks put together imbued him with a strength of character that made it possible for him to keep TIP intact through the early turbulent years. TIP was his great- est passion. He lived TIP every day, and so did his family. We “chewed” TIP for breakfast, lunch and dinner. He brought us to TIP even on Sundays. It is only now that I fully understand the passion, and I hope that my children, one of whom is also now with TIP, will also understand in time. Having introduced Papa to you, let me now show you in more detail how he was both father and, like he was to many others, teacher to me. To reiterate, he was not my classroom teacher but he taught me, starting very early on, how to manage the school by his example and his admonitions. He immersed his children, especially me, being the eldest, in the day-to-day affairs of TIP as we were growing up. These lessons were not just about nurturing the growth of a school, they were lessons about life as well, lessons on how to survive its travails and challenges. He taught me, again by example, how to have a strong personality. To be passionate. To be a creature of habit. To be obsessive-compulsive. To keep on learning. To be firm and
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