Dennis Gordon Majerus

1942 - 2018

Dennis Gordon Majerus

Sheboygan - Dennis Gordon Majerus of Sheboygan died on October 17 of heart failure in his home. In recent years, Dennis held court most afternoons at the Weather Center café, where he spoke eagerly to anyone who would listen about the teachings of Gandhi, the philosophy of JRR Tolkien, and the best approach to a stealthy checkmate in chess.

Dennis was born at St. Nicholas Hospital in Sheboygan on December 2, 1942, to Carol (Kind) and Gordon Majerus. He was their firstborn child, followed by his sister Gail and baby twin sisters Kim and Kay. Dennis grew up in Sheboygan, living next door to his beloved grandparents Lillian and Elmer Kind until the age of 14, when the family moved to Chicago. He graduated from St. George High School in Evanston, Illinois. He attended the Illinois Institute of Technology for a time, leaving school to join the army. He was stationed in Germany with the third squadron of the Eighth Cavalry Regiment. After his service, he returned to college at Illinois State University on the GI Bill. He earned a BA and MA in Education. While at ISU, he met and married Patricia (Jessie) Norris of Chicago, and the couple had a daughter, Elizabeth. When they divorced a few years later, Dennis took on primary custody of Elizabeth, and the two moved to the north side of Chicago.

Dennis worked as a math teacher in the Chicago Public Schools; a counselor and administrator at Thresholds High School, a therapeutic day school for students with ongoing mental health needs; and a teacher for Project SEED, a program focused on helping low-income students succeed in advanced math. In 1980, Dennis moved with Elizabeth to Sheboygan, where he took a job in information technology at the Kohler Company, providing computer support at the help desk for more than ten years. During his years at Kohler, he played basketball at the YMCA, served as a basketball referee, was a member of the Y's Men, and coached pee-wee football.

In the mid-nineties, Dennis relocated to Santa Cruz, California, where he worked with the environmental fundraising organization CALPIRG. During his time with CALPIRG, he adopted a distinctive acronym, Ploahb Egactalt, which stood for Peace Loving and Optimistic Human Being, Ever Gracious and Considerate Toward All Living Things. The Santa Cruz CALPIRG office created the Plaohb Egactalt Award in Dennis's honor, "for being such a pillar for our office--always there, driving us to turf, and leading the pack in getting people to contribute to the cause," in the words of former CALPIRG Field Manager Dan Ulrich.

In the early 2000s, Dennis returned home to Sheboygan, where he took on a simple and modest way of life and began a spiritual quest that would last the rest of his years. He read a variety of sources that offered him wisdom on matters of peace, love, and forgiveness--particularly Herman Hesse's Siddhartha, the writings of Gandhi, and all of the works of JRR Tolkien--and shared the insights he gleaned with anyone who was interested in talking with him at the Weather Center. He always kept count of the number of days he'd been alive and insisted that every new day was the best day of his life.

Dennis was preceded in death by his sister, Kay; his father, Gordon; and his mother, Carol. He is survived by his daughter, Elizabeth Majerus, and her husband, Matt Mitchell, and his grandchildren Otis and Ruby, of Urbana, Illinois; and by his two sisters, Gail Loughlin of Lockport, Illinois, and Kim Majerus of Lemont, Illinois.

There will be a memorial service to celebrate Dennis's life on Sunday, December 2, 2018, at 3:00 PM in the side room at the Weather Center Café.