William Darkey, a founding faculty member and former dean of St. John's College in Santa Fe, is remembered as a gentle-mannered man who shared his passion for the school and its ideals. Darkey died in Santa Fe on Monday at the age of 88.

Born Jan. 24, 1921 in Cumberland, Md., Darkey was only 17 when he first set foot on the St. John's campus in Annapolis, Md.

"He won a scholarship to St. John's just thinking it was a regular liberal arts school," said Peter Nabokov, Darkey's stepson.

Instead, Darkey realized that the school's curriculum was much different than he'd expected, as well as from almost anything in the country at the time.

Called the Great Books Program or New Program, it was developed and implemented by Scott Buchanan and Stringfellow Barr.

In the program, students read and discussed great works of philosophy, literature, theology and mathematics. There, according to Nabokov, Darkey became enthralled, and it was then that his dedication to St. John's began.

He met poet and professor Mark Van Doren there — the two later became friends at Columbia University, where Darkey earned his master's degree — and others, including Nabokov's father, composer and writer Nicolas Nabokov, who taught at St. John's.

"He always appreciated just how lucky he was to meet these folks and be under their tutelage," Nabokov said.

"He never recovered from falling in love with ideas," Nabokov said.

Upon Darkey's graduation in 1942, Buchanan and Barr asked him to join the faculty. Darkey recalled the conversation a few years ago, and it was published in the college magazine.

"Buchanan called me in and he said, 'You know, Winkie (Barr) and I have been talking ... we ought to have a student or two on the faculty because none of us have actually been through the curriculum.' I said, 'You must kidding!' But after the initial shock wore off, I asked, 'Gosh, you really think I could do that?' "

"If I didn't think you could, I wouldn't have asked you," Buchanan replied.

So Darkey took the job, worth a $500 salary and free board at the college.

But when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, men rushed to enlist and Darkey was among them. Poor eyesight, though, kept him out. At the end of 1946, he finally got into the Army, where he was assigned to training methods.

"This was teaching people useful things like how to throw a grenade," Darkey said in the St. John's magazine.

He enrolled in Columbia after being honorably discharged, earned his master's degree in English literature and returned to St. John's in 1949.

"Salaries were not abundant in those years," Nabokov said. So Darkey took a job as a carpenter. "He liked to do carpentry," he said, "and he was damn good at it."

Even in that work, Darkey used his skills to benefit the college. "He built benches for St. John's students to sit on in the cafeteria," Nabokov said. "To tell you the truth, his life was devoted to this school."

It was also during his time as faculty in Annapolis that Darkey took part, with a few other faculty, in founding The Key School, a college preparatory school.

In the early 1960s, faculty at St. John's talked of expanding, but doing so in a way that would maintain small class sizes.

In addition to a few sites in California, faculty also discussed Santa Fe as a possible location for a sister campus.

Darkey was part of a small team sent to investigate. Darkey and the others met architect John Gaw Meem, who eventually donated more than 200 acres for the school, and in 1964, the Santa Fe campus opened.

Darkey was appointed to be the second dean of the school in 1968, serving until 1972. He continued to teach at the school into the 1990s.

He was still there when Victoria Mora, current dean of the college, arrived in 1992. She grew to know him during faculty meetings where "Bill was one of the people I paid closest attention to" because of his history at the school.

Mora described Darkey as having a "Mark Twain wisdom and wit" and being passionate about the school and its Santa Fe setting.

"He was just a great guy," Nabokov said. "He was a tad formal, he had a good sense of humor."

Nabokov credits Darkey with influencing him to become a writer. He remembered specifically a trip to Mexico when Nabokov was 14 or 15. "He, in our reading of Shakespeare, wore me down with his patience," Nabokov said.

Darkey taught him about symbols and themes and all the things he loved about literature.

"He was a teacher through and through," Nabokov said.

Darkey was preceded in death by his wife, Constance Holladay. He is survived by his stepson; his daughter, Catherine Darcy; and a grandson, Aaron Darcy.

Contact John Sena at 986-3019 or jsena@sfnewmexican.com.