Dr. Walsh retiring at end of month

by Courtney Ortega, editorial assistant

                                                                

After 15 years of service as the provost of South Plains College, Dr. Dick Walsh finds his stellar career coming to an end.

Born and raised in Amarillo, Walsh spent a great deal of his educational career as a student and later as faculty member, at Eastern New Mexico University in Portales, N. M. It was there that he received his Bachelor of Business Administration Degree, as well as his Master of Arts and Education Specialist degrees. Walsh served for more than 25 years in higher education administration at ENMU, working his way up to the position of associate vice president of student affairs and receiving the first Presidential Award for Outstanding Professional Employee. He eventually found his way to Lubbock, where he has worked at the Byron Martin Advanced Technology Center as the provost of the SPC campuses for 15 years. Walsh recently announced that he will be retiring at the end of the month.

When making the transition from Portales to Lubbock, Walsh found it rather easy, as he had previously attended Texas Tech University to receive his Doctorate of Education in 1981. Walsh’s wife of 39 years, Dede, has also served the Lubbock community as a teacher for the Lubbock Independent School District.

As he looks back on his time working at SPC and his involvement in the city of Lubbock, Walsh hopes that he has brought partnership and great economic opportunity through his work with programs such as the Lubbock Economic Development Alliance and Work Source of the South Plains.

Walsh and his wife have three sons, Shawn, Kerry, and Mark. He said that he looks forward to what the future holds for him after his retirement.

“We’re going to take all of our family to the Cowboys – Redskins game on November 18,” Walsh said. “There is going to be 18 of us, and we’ll probably be broke after that.”

Walsh, who credits God for his great success in life and is an active member of his church, also has plans for a trip with his wife upon a Christian cruise line to Cozumel, Mexico.

Despite plans to take advantage of his retirement with some traveling, do not expect Walsh to just continue to take it easy.

“I also want to start another profession,” he said. “I want to become a professional trainer for health.”

And as if he will not be busy enough, Walsh promises that he will not forget about the South Plains College family anytime soon.

“You cannot take South Plains College out of my heart,” Walsh said. “I’m sure my wife and I will be making much more basketball games, so we’ll still be around.”

As Walsh prepares for retirement, he says the greatest advice he can give to the students of SPC is “Make a plan.”

“Say why do I want to do this? Then ask, how do I want to do this? And then figure out after you’re done what you will accomplish from all this, and is it worth it? That is the best guidance I can give.”

It seems that if Walsh’s life until now is any indication of his future after SPC, he will have nothing but more success to come.