West taught biology and microbiology at Valdosta State College from 1968 to 1994. He was also the pre-pharmacy advisor at VSC. On weekends and afternoons, West worked as a landscape gardener “to supplement a meager salary from teaching.” When he started teaching at VSC in 1968, West said his annual salary was $10,000 per year. It was a big improvement, he said, over what he made as a public school teacher in Americus — $3,300 per year — with a $500 annual supplement for agreeing to sell basketball tickets. However, he said money was not his primary incentive for choosing a teaching career.

“Seeing the growth, development and success of students was rewarding in itself,” he said. “I still miss the students very much. I am sure I made many mistakes over the years and hope I am not too well remembered for them.”

The most troubling aspect of teaching was assigning grades. West said he made every attempt to be fair, even bent over backwards in some instances, but there were still cases in which he could not justify a passing grade. There were many successes with his VSC students, however, many of whom stand out professionally today, he said.

“These students would have been successful regardless of who their teacher was,” he said. “I was only fortunate to have them come my way.”

West shared several anecdotes from his teaching days. He said he was teaching a freshman biology lab once, in which the exercise called for crossing a blond hair with a black hair and mounting it in water on a glass slide under a cover slip. As he was giving instructions, he quickly pulled a blond hair from a surprised female student.

“When I tried to pull a black hair from another female student, she and I both were startled and the entire class went into pandemonium. The girl with the black hair was wearing a wig. The individual black hair did not come loose and the whole wig came off her head. I am not sure very much was learned in lab that day,” he said.

West recalled another occasion when, on microbiology lab day, he was in the small prep room adjacent to the main lab preparing materials for the next session. A pre-med student came from the hall into the lab and asked some other students who had arrived a bit early, “Is that old b------ here yet?”

“He was referring to me, of course, so I stuck my head out of the prep room and said, ‘Yes, I am here.’ I will never forget his expression. I believe he made an ‘A’ in spite of it all,” West said.

West did landscape gardening for 30 years and said he landscaped the yards of many homes around Valdosta. He enjoys putting plants together in ways that accent the architecture of the house he’s working around and said he regards landscape gardening as an art form. The garden walkway behind the home he shares with his wife, Jerry Register, a retired nurse, testifies to his skill and love of weaving plants and architecture into aesthetically satisfying combinations. The landscaping income was only a side benefit to something he had a great passion for, he said.

“The need for artistic expression and achievement was far greater than any financial rewards,” he said. “My professional landscaping simply evolved from a hobby and an art form that I was close to.”

He said he enjoyed getting to know and making friends with so many folks over the years. After he and one of his clients had settled on a landscaping plan, the man remarked, “Some folks say Hugh and some folks say Harris, so which is it?” Trying to be funny, West said, “Some folks call me Hugh and some folks call me Harris. Some folks call me Hugh H. and some folks call me H.H. or Hugh Harris. My friends call me Harris, but you can call me Hugh.” As can be imagined, that didn't come off correctly, he said, adding that the man never let him forget it.

“He is a friend but still calls me Hugh,” he said.

West said he always gave detailed instructions to his landscape helpers on how to dig an appropriate hole for a plant. “You must dig a 50 dollar hole for a 50 cent plant,” he said. He explained that the hole should be bigger around than the plant in the pot and that it should be made as wide at the bottom as at the top, in other words the hole should not be cone shaped.

He said his No. 1 son Guy and his buddy Court Smith must not have appreciated the fact that he thought they didn't know how to dig an appropriate hole. They were ahead of him digging while he was behind planting, but they were surreptitiously observing his whereabouts.

“Suddenly I came upon a hole that was completely square or cube shaped,” he said. “There were a few other shapes that followed which were not round. They had a real holler when they experienced my reaction.”