Friday, September 10, 1999

Ex-law school dean courts the outdoor life

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BY JOHN JOHNSTON
The Cincinnati Enquirer

        Almost half his life has been spent teaching law to aspiring attorneys. It's work that 76-year-old W. Jack Grosse has found satisfying, and yet ...

Everyone has a story worth telling. At least, that's the theory. To test it, Tempo is throwing darts at the phone book. When a dart hits a name, a reporter dials the phone number and asks if someone in the home will be interviewed. Stories appear on Fridays.

        “I guess what I really would rather have done is be a forest ranger,” he says. With that, the former dean of the Chase College of Law at Northern Kentucky University tosses back his head of mussed gray hair and laughs loud and long.

        But it's no lawyer joke. Mr. Grosse (pronounced “grow-see”) loves the outdoors. Always has. He has enjoyed trekking part of the Appalachian Trail with Norma, his wife of 52 years, as well as bird watching and hiking local paths.

        Just a few weeks ago, the Grosses returned from an 18-day vacation that took them from upstate New York to Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. For eight of those days, they roughed it in a tent. Their daughter, Lisa, (a Batavia lawyer) and her three children, ages 13, 11 and 8, accompanied them.

        “A couple of my (law school) colleagues said, "You actually tented? At your age?' ” Mr. Grosse says. He's smiling again.

        Sure enough. He taught his grandchildren how to build a campfire. He roasted marshmallows. He swam. He fished. He saw beaver and fox. The one soggy night the family endured didn't dampen anyone's enthusiasm.

        Jack Grosse probably would have made a fine forest ranger — or anything else he set his mind to. But as a boy growing up poor in Madisonville, with parents who never got beyond eighth grade, he never thought much about college.

        That changed when the Withrow High grad returned from World War II and a stint in the Army. Opportunity awaited in the form of the G.I. Bill, a program of grants for education.

        Studying at night and working during the day, he earned a degree in commerce at Chase College (which in those days was in Cincinnati and had a business school). He worked in banking for a while, earned an MBA (also through the G.I. Bill), then taught economics at Xavier University and Chase.

        A college dean, impressed with this young man's teaching ability, encouraged him to attend law school. Soon after graduation, he was back in the classroom. He taught law full time for 33 years and was instrumental in merging Chase with Northern Kentucky University. He still teaches there part time as an adjunct professor.

        He's proud of his legal career; of the judges and prosecutors and defense attorneys he helped educate; of the books he wrote on education law, government contracts and insurance law.

        “I like my profession,” he says, sitting on the open deck of his condominium, “but there are other important things, too. Like family and kids and my own well being, and getting outside.”

        Ah, getting outside. That's the forest ranger talking.

        Mr. Grosse considers himself an environmentalist, but adds, “I'm not an environmental nut. I try to be balanced.”

        He took that approach, he says, with his latest book, written for students of environmental law. Titled The Protection & Management of Our Natural Resources, Wildlife & Habitat, it signifies that his legal expertise and love of outdoors are not mutually exclusive.

        He hopes up-and-coming lawyers will read it and reflect on contributions they can make to bettering the environment.

        Mr. Grosse dedicated the book to Norma; his son, Douglas; his daughter, Lisa; and to his grandchildren: Stephen, Anna, Megan, Will and Sean.

        The latter three children enjoyed camping in the Northeast so much, another trip is being planned for next year. The family is considering Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island.

        “That's going to be great for the kids,” Mr. Grosse says.

        Including the one who's 76.

       

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