HEADLINE:

MYERS PARK'S DEAN BARBER
Ebay Sale Honors Late Art Teacher

DAN TIERNEY
dtierney@charlotteobserver.com

Randy Farmer doesn't live in Charlotte, nor does he work as an artist.

But when the 1983 Myers Park High graduate found that nobody had started a scholarship to honor the late Dean Barber, who taught art at the school for much of the '70s and '80s, Farmer jumped into action.

For at least a week starting May 3, people can go to eBay.com and bid on donated art with all proceeds benefiting the Dean Barber Memorial Scholarship. Organizers hope to raise at least $7,500 in addition to the $2,500 already collected to award a college scholarship to a Myers Park art student.

Why is Farmer so interested in honoring his former art teacher?

"(Barber) was an incredible teacher," Farmer said of his teacher, who died in 1995. "If he was a basketball coach or a football coach and had the number of people he sent to college on scholarship, he'd have a building named after him."

When Farmer and others decided to start a scholarship, they reached out to Myers Park graduates who remain in the art field and others to donate some of their work. Organizers decided to hold the auction on eBay. Logistics kept people with careers and families from finding one specific weekend to gather in Charlotte to hold an event.

Still, Farmer doesn't count out a future Charlotte event. He's also helping organize another auction for the fall -- all for a teacher who touched his life more than 25 years ago. Some graduates even tell stories of years when more Myers Park art students received college scholarships than football players did.

"He would not let you fail," said Farmer, who's now a school board attorney in Marietta, Ga. "If you screwed up what you were drawing, he would show you a way to make it look like it wasn't a screwup.

"I won art awards, and I don't consider myself an artist."

Dan Tierney: 704-358-5696