Several years ago, I wrote about being “legendary” based on what a woman said to me at a while buying a movie ticket. On one of our P-days together (every Thursday we had Play-Day from the FamilySearch Library), I believe it was in December of 2010, we decided to see a show at the Newgate Mall. When I walked up to the window to buy the movie tickets, there was a middle-aged woman who waited on us. I paid by a credit card, and when I did so, she asked for a picture ID. When she saw my name on the I.D., she lit up and in a louder voice said “Emil Hanson, I know you! Well, I really don’t know you but I know about you. She went on to say that her full time job was an English instructor at Weber State University. She said you are the legendary Emil Hanson, the person that built the STAARS System aren’t you?” I said, “Yes, but how do you know about that?” She replied, “I have never met you, but I have heard so much about you and the wonderful STAARS system.” (STAARS = Student Accounting And Record System)
The system went online in 1991, and it was a beloved system by staff all across campus who enjoyed using it each day. She said that she was on a five member committee to coordinate the installation of the Banner System (A commercial student accounting system that the State Board of Higher Education required all the Universities to convert to for uniformity) and she said,
“You wouldn’t believe the opposition we ran into. They still don’t have a graduation evaluation program that works.” “She said that she was glad that she finally got to meet me. It probably took at least ten years to implement the Banner system because they ran into so many bugs and so much opposition by staff. There were too many things that just would not work. Parts of the STAARS system were apparently still being used in 2010, 14 years after I retired. I understand that some staff actually considered quitting because they thought it was such a bad decision to implement the commercial Banner System.
Then in December 2013, I had to go on campus to get some information about my wife’s insurance that she had had with Weber State through my employment there. I went to the Personnel Office and was directed to the Associate Director of that Office to help me. She asked me my name and then said, Oh, I know who you are! You are the Guru who developed the STAARS system. She went on to say, “I don’t really know you, but I know of you because I have heard so much about you.” She had just started working at Weber state the year before I retired, 18 years ago at the time of our discussion.
As I left her office, I thought to myself, I guess I really did make a significant impact while I was working at Weber State University. But because I gave the President’s Staff such a hard time, I’m sure that they will never acknowledge me the way that they have others.
Those administrative staff are mostly retired now, as well, and their replacements know nothing about me. Too me, it is a great honor to be acknowledged by those who were and are in the trenches, so to speak. Those who either were users of the STAARS system or at least knew about it. Why? Because they either had used or knew how the system had eased the workload of staff and provided a much greater and faster service to students.
I seldom think about those days anymore, but when I do, I get a smile on my face because, 18 years later, some still knew of me and thought of the me as a “guru” and as the “Legendary Emil Hanson.” Even those who had never met me.