Steven Murillo
Staff Writer
Idaho State University professor Dr. Harold Hellwig has been fortunate enough over the course of his career to be able to pursue his interests and even publish books on the subjects.
The life and works of Mark Twain, in particular, have been an area of continued passion for Hellwig who, like Twain, worked early in his career as a journalist.
He began his collegiate career in New York as an undergraduate at New York State University Buffalo.
Hellwig attended college during the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, during the height of the Vietnam War.
While Hellwig was never drafted, he did find himself surrounded by the chaos and events that were taking place all over the country in relation to the conflict.
At his school in Buffalo, New York, there were a number of radical students who protested the war and held riots, sometimes in ways which affected the other students and the university as a whole.
“I tried to be objective but at some point the tear gas was being thrown and the police were chasing me down,” said Hellwig.
Student protests occasionally grew beyond the boundaries of what we commonly consider, leading to several buildings on the campus being occupied by more extreme protestors.
“I had to attend a Spanish class at the house of a professor because the regular building was not accessible,” said Hellwig.
The radical students of University at Buffalo believed the school was conducting research for the military and felt that they needed to make a difference by stopping this action.
Hellwig worked for the campus newspaper, in the capacity of a staff writer, which led him into some interesting situations and experiences.
Hellwig once found himself trapped in a campus building that was held by radicals. After they accused him of being a spy for taking notes on the happenings to report to the paper, they threw him out.
While Hellwig has found his niche within the world of English literature, he was not always so involved. “I was a chemistry major my first year,” said Hellwig.
He soon found after a year that he would rather pursue his interests and follow a career in English and also continue working for the newspaper.
After finishing his undergraduate degree, Hellwig travelled to southern California and wound up living there as a beach bum for a while, because he needed a bit of time off.
He eventually continued his education at UCLA, where he received his Master’s and Ph.D.
Hellwig then taught for three years at the University of Iowa before coming to ISU.
“I like Idaho because it has familiar mountains like California and I really liked the scenery in California,” said Hellwig.
In much the same manner as Twain, Hellwig eventually gave up the journalistic calling to pursue his passion in literature. Specifically, he studied the life and works of Mark Twain.
He gravitated toward the author in the ‘90s and published a book on the subject entitled, “Mark Twain’s Travel Literature: The Odyssey of a Mind” in 2008.
