Charles Wayne Thompson

Wayne was my social studies teacher in high school in the early 1990s, and I think of what we learned that year often. He had a way of making history come alive, and a gift for showing us its relevance to our everyday lives. He spoke about subjects I never heard any other teacher speak of -- the Vietnam War, the human costs of Hiroshima, the AIDS epidemic. He had a person living with AIDS come to our class and tell his story, humanizing the epidemic in a way nothing else could. For extra...

Rolly, my condolences to you on your loss and with fond memory of visiting your farm 20 years ago or so... your cousin Susan from Santa Monica

We are saddened to learn of the passing of Wayne, but grateful for his service to our nation with the Peace Corps in Peru.

Our Condolences,
The National Peace Corps Association

I had the good fortune of doing my student teaching at Roosevelt Jr High School in 1983. Wayne reluctantly agreed to be a cooperating teacher and mentor me. Man, was I lucky! He was an amazing mentor; inspirational, knowledgeable, supportive, witty, genuine, caring, sometimes curmudgeonly and sarcastic, but most importantly he was fair, made learning fun, and was well-loved and respected by his students. I went on to teach for 30-plus years and have always counted Wayne as one of the three...

I took at least two classes from Wayne at South Eugene HS in the late 80s, and I remember him very fondly, He had a great way of making history fun by sheer force of personality and seriousness. Tons of energy, and a real love for the subject. I still remember a mock United Nations summit that he put on in class...some friends and I were representing Libya, and we decided to have fun with it and show up10 minutes late blaring the Libyan national anthem on a boom box and waving the...

One of the best teachers I ever had. He helped inspire me to teach middle school for a time. The effort he put into his lesson plans paid huge dividends for his many students.
-Tom Klonoski

Wayne Thompson was my teacher at Roosevelt and one of my favorite teachers EVER! He had a way of never smiling and we would work to get him to crack a smile with us. He taught through active learning practices (like having his student doing simulations of setting up our own countries with our own constitutions, etc.) He also had us read books like "A Tale of Two Cities." These books challenged us and moved us. Wayne also took many of us on Outdoor Ed. experiences and taught us how to...