DENVER, Colo. — For decades, beginning in 1962, high school history teacher Dick Jordan had told all of his students to meet him on the steps of the Denver Public Library on the first day of the new millennium.
He also told them to bring a dollar, because he planned to be retired and figured he would need the money to go Tahiti.
On Saturday, more than 100 former students showed up in front of the library to honor a man they said taught them to think for themselves. And they brought dollars.
They came from Alaska, Texas, Los Angeles and New York. They came on crutches. They brought children and grandchildren.
"He inspired all of us to do what we thought was the right thing to do. If that meant raising hell along the way, that too," said Judi Stein Stutman, 51, who was a member of Jordan's first class at George Washington High.
Over the years, Jordan's students argued about the Vietnam War. They discussed the assassination of President Kennedy. For former student Andrew Hudson, now a spokesman for Denver Mayor Wellington Webb, the issues were Reaganomics, integration, the Cold War and busing.
Hudson said Jordan was passionate about his work "because he knew that knowledge was going to be important to your future."
Stutman said students took his teaching to heart. She became an advocate for disabled students and teaches them to fight for their rights. Others became urban planners, consultants and public officials.
"I can't believe this, folks. I don't know how to thank you," Jordan told his former students, wearing several of their dollar bills pinned to his shirt.
Jordan, who retired five years ago, said he changed his mind about going to Tahiti and will donate the money to a soup kitchen.
Jordan was moved to tears when a man came up to him Saturday and said it was his wife's dying wish that he attend the reunion in her place and help her keep a promise she made more than 30 years ago.
"Thank you for honoring me," he said. "It's been a wonderful life."