Nunez Mourns Drafting Teacher Funeral To Pass College Campus
Submitted By N.O.V.A.
Times Picayune 	02-6-1997


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The old iron bell will sound at Nunez Community College today as the funeral
procession for drafting and technology design Professor Bob Brannan, who died
Sunday, passes in front of the school.

President Carol Hopson said the school will put the school's answering machine on
at 11 a.m. so people can attend the funeral, at St. Bernard Memorial Funeral Home.
The bell in front of the school will toll about 12:15 p.m. for a small ceremony
for students and employees.

"We can't close the school down, but we can work with a skeleton crew," Hopson
told faculty members as they gathered for a special meeting Wednesday about how to
help Brannan's family and how to deal with grief.

"This is the kind of hurt you feel in strange ways," Hopson said. "We will also
schedule a memorial service for him so that we will be able to close this painful
experience. I have to let my faculty know that we must go on."

Brannan, 41, who died of a heart attack, had taught at the school since 1992. He
designed the college's pelican seal at that time. He also was vice president of
the Faculty Senate, co-chairman of the Institutional Effectiveness Committee and
facilities coordinator.

"He was the type of faculty member that went the extra yard with the students,"
said Bryan Keating, division chair of business and technology.

The college is taking additional steps to help students and faculty deal with
grief.

"We will have a grief counselor available for everyone to talk to," Hopson said.

Kenneth McKnight, who was taking Brannan's computer-assisted drafting course, said
he might take advantage of the counseling.

"We locked horns about the first week because I had been out of the academic scene
of things, and thought I knew everything," said McKnight, 36, who worked with
automobiles before deciding he wanted to learn drafting. "I started thinking
Brannan's got something I want, so I humbled myself and became a student. I
learned a lot from him. His death came as a real surprise to me."