After twenty years of dedicated service, Richard Bello, assistant professor of speech, is retiring from Nicholls to take an early retirement in the state of Louisiana and work as a full-time associate professor of speech at Sam Houston University in Texas.
“I will miss two main things: the students and colleagues. I will miss good relationships with both students and faculty,” Bello said.
He first arrived on Nicholls campus in 1981, took a temporary position for one year and then left to go to Texas A & M. Then in 1984 he returned to Nicholls and has been teaching speech since.
Bello said he has no other big plans and that the position at Sam Houston is a good opportunity. He will continue to teach and pursue his hobbies such as traveling, camping, playing table tennis and reading his comics. He hopes to perhaps one day visit England.
“My most memorable moment at Nicholls had to be when a student brought in a live rattle snake in an aquarium for a speech, which escaped and caused mass chaos in my classroom,” Bello said.
Bello said getting the speech forum at Nicholls started and keeping the forums going with the help of Aaron O’Neal, associate professor of speech, is perhaps what he is most proud of. Bello also said he hopes that he has changed the lives of the students through his teaching by some degree.
“I enjoyed listening to the speeches because I learned a lot from the students, and I will miss the people I worked with such as Aaron O’Neal, James Stewart and the other faculty members. The environment at Nicholls was fun, and I never dreaded coming to work,” Bello said.
Upon Bello’s arrival at Nicholls 20 years ago, Thomas Mortillaro, dean of the college of arts and sciences, said Bello’s dedication as a faculty member was immediately apparent.
“His dedication, efficiency, integrity and the way he puts his heart and soul into whatever he pursues is what I admire about Bello. Ultimately, his constant impact in the classroom as a supreme teacher will be what he is most remembered for here at Nicholls,” Mortillaro said.
James Stewart, mass communication department head, said he first met Bello in the fall of 1990 and they have been very good friends ever since.
“Bello is a very good teacher who spends time with the students inside and outside of the classroom, gives good advice, conducts very diligent research and has, in conjunction with Aaron O’Neal, started the speech forums at Nicholls,” Stewart said.
Stewart said Bello has organized speech forums and competitive speeches, conducted tangible research and increased the status and prestige for active speech organizations.
“Because Bello has had such a tremendous impact on Nicholls community, there are so many things I will miss about him once he is gone. He is a rare individual with a combination of humor, education and intelligence and his profound effect on the lives of students will be hard to replace,” Stewart said.
Aaron O’Neal, associate professor of speech, said he first met Bello back in 1973 at LSU. During this time O’Neal was teaching as a graduate assistant and thought Bello was an excellent student.
According to O’Neal, in 1981 Bello asked if he would like to start a speech forum at Nicholls that would be modeled after the speech forums held at LSU. Ever since then three to four speech forums are held a year during both the fall and spring semesters. The forums were first held in classrooms, the conference room and the century clubroom, and today they are held in the Student Union Cotillion Ballroom. The average attendance for the forums is 2,300 and the record high attendance exceeded 3,000. O’Neal attributes much of the forums’ success to Bello’s efforts.
In addition to the forum, O’Neal said Bello began the two-speech contest, co-managed the Nicholls Players productions and judged the literary rallies for original auditory all of his years at Nicholls.
“It has been a pleasure working with a former student. I have learned from him as well, not only from a student college relationship, but also as a friend. I am impressed by his dynamism in the classroom, his scholarship research and sense of humor with the ‘lunch bunch.’ Nicholls will miss him, and I will miss him too,” O’Neal said.