Duty-Free Vodka

The first time I met Mike Pyryt was also my first year to attend the National Association for Gifted Children's conference. It must have been more than 15 years ago. I was a graduate student at the time, and I attended the Research and Evaluation Committee meeting being held one evening. I fully expected the meeting to be filled with stodgy and intimidating researchers and scholars.

The chair of the meeting got things started by reaching under the conference table and pulling out a bottle of vodka on ice and passing around plastic hotel cups. He invited the group to join him in a toast. That chairman was Mike Pyryt, and that meeting was my my first exposure to a great researcher in the field field of gifted education.

Once, I asked Mike to explain how he had used a statical procedure (multivariate analysis) to reach some conclusion in a study he had conducted. Mike's entire demeanor changed, he became almost giddy with excitement, and he began an enthusiastic and in-depth explanation of his study's methodology and conclusions. I was no longer a publisher speaking to professor; I was a student getting my first lesson on the application of multivariate analysis. Mike's passion for research was infective.

One of Mike's traditions at the NAGC conference was to purchase a bottle of duty-free vodka when he crossed the boarder from Canada to the U.S. On one night during the annual conference, Mike and his best friend Sal Mendaglio would host an after-hours vodka party in their hotel room for a handful of close friends--usually an eclectic group of talented researches and scholars. Now this was no normal cocktail party. Guests were expected to drink their vodka ice cold with no mixers in the little plastic hotel cups provided--no easy task! The small parties usually didn't breakup until 3:00 in the morning when Mike and Sal would throw everyone out. These parties lasted hours and featured in-depth talk of gifted children, counseling practices, research, gossip, our personal histories and lives, and even lengthy (and unfair ... you heard me, Mike ... unfair) comparisons of Canadian and US culture. I can trace many of my fondest memories of NAGC conferences back to Mike and Sal's parties.

I'm not sure how best to honor Dr. Pyryt; however, I suspect if he had some say in the matter, it would involve a small group of very good friends and a bottle of duty-free vodka.
-- Joel McIntosh