Professor remembered through ties

By Ettie Berneking

Published Sept. 7, 2007

Robert Bailey said Sept. 5 is the only day people will see him in a tie.

Bailey, an assistant dean in the MU School of Law, joined several other members of the law school staff and students to honor and remember the memory of their friend, colleague and professor, Tim Heinsz, by sporting bow ties, one of Heinsz' trademarks.

Heinsz, who served as dean of the MU School of Law from 1988-2001, got his start in St. Louis, where he grew up and practiced law in the Lewis, Rice and Fingersh firm. Heinsz came to MU in 1979 as a visiting professor with a specialty in labor law. He permanently joined the staff in 1981.

Heinsz was thought of as one of the university's academic leaders and was a nationally respected legal scholar.

Heinsz died of a heart attack in July 2004. The loss was a dramatic blow to the law school, associate professor Douglas Abrams said.

"The law school lost more than a dean," he said.

Abrams remembered Heinsz as a man whom everyone loved and respected.

"The day he died, he didn't have a single enemy in the world," Abrams said. "The students loved him, the faculty loved him, the alumni loved him."

Abrams, whose office faced Heinsz's, smiled at the memory of walking into Heinsz's office every morning just to say hi.

"He lightened up your morning," Abrams said. "He had a glisten in his eye."

Bailey, Heinsz's best friend for 25 years, recalls Heinsz as "impish." James Devine, associate dean for academic affairs, shared the sentiment.

Bailey's office is adorned with several small ceramic white rabbits, which serve as daily reminders of the humorous games and mischief that Bailey and Heinsz used to get into. On the first day of every month, the two would compete to see who could say "white rabbit," a sign of good luck, to the other first.

Bailey said one morning he had come to school to find Heinsz had left a real white rabbit in his office. Other times, Bailey said he would find bites taken out of his apple or banana. Heinsz would always be the culprit.

"He relished life," Bailey said. "He really delighted in being alive."

This "playful spirit," as Bailey called it, is why Heinsz's close friends and family members decided to do something every year in his memory.

"No one wants to mourn his death," Devine said. "They all want to celebrate his life."

Heinsz wore a bow tie nearly every day to honor attorney Archibald Cox, who served as the U.S. solicitor general under President John Kennedy and served as prosecutor during the Watergate scandal.

After Heinsz's death, his colleagues agreed that the most appropriate way to honor him would be to sport the same bow ties he was known so well for. Several of those participating in this year's third annual bow tie event were wearing Heinsz's own ties, which his wife, Susan Heinsz, had kept after his passing.

The annual bow tie event is not the only celebration dedicated to Tim Heinsz. The law school also puts on a 5K memorial run every year. This year, the run will be held on April 19. The memorial run raises money for the Tim Heinsz Memorial Scholarship.

Tim Heinsz will always be remembered as a man who embodied "everything you'd want out of a friend," Devine said.