His office walls are filled with books of notable authors of different genres, much of which is LDS literature. From his office window, he can overlook the city of Provo, something he has kept track of since he was a child during the 1930s. And by his window sits his good friend: a fake chicken.

It is the office of Dr. Douglas Thayer, a 78-year-old English professor.

"It's a Chinese-built chicken," Thayer said. "I wanted a couple of chickens to talk to, but my wife doesn't want me to have any live ones, so she bought me this one. When I retire, I'll buy a few anyway."

Thayer, well known throughout campus, will reach a milestone in his career when he hits his 50-year teaching mark this fall.

"I think it's a compliment to myself," Thayer said. "I'm glad the department has accepted me and likes to have me around. I'm not considered a corpse."

English Department faculty members agree Thayer still holds a passion for teaching after all these years.

"He's a true wonder of nature in the enthusiasm and energy he still shows on the job," said Nicholas Mason, English associate chair. "You never get the sense that he's just hanging on. He can do it for another 10 years if he wanted to."

According to Human Resource Service's records of faculty who have worked at or retired from BYU within the last five to six years, there have been three faculty members with 50 or more years of service, including Dr. Thayer.

Thayer teaches creative writing classes such as short story, writing fiction and writing and rhetoric.

He has published two novels: "Summer Fire" (1983) and "The Conversion of Jeff Williams (2003)."

Thayer has also written two collections of short stories: "Under the Cottonwood and Other Mormon Stories" [1977] and "Mr. Wahlquist in Yellowstone" [1989], according to the English Department.

Students said they appreciate how Thayer does his best to relate to them.

"He's involved with his students," said Mary Hornby, an English major from Glonoma, Wash. "He filmed us all so he could get to know all our faces and learn our names by the end of the class."

Besides his dedication, students and English faculty also know him for something else: his boldness.

"There's a little bit of cynicism to it," said Elizabeth Wahlquist, a fellow faculty member. "He makes fun of everything, but nothing that he shouldn't. He's not afraid to say anything."

In return, the faculty has fun teasing him for his seniority within the department, Mason said.

"The faculty makes jokes about him teaching here with Karl Maeser and helping Brigham Young set up the university," Mason said. "There are good jokes he takes to good nature; I've appreciated his sense of humor."

Thayer began teaching at BYU in 1957, when BYU's enrollment was only 9,000 students. Since then, enrollment has more than tripled.

"As I recall, there were only between six to eight buildings when I started teaching," Thayer said.

There are nearly 90 buildings today, excluding dormitories.

Thayer has taught under six BYU presidents: Ernest L. Wilkinson, Dallin H. Oaks, Jeffrey R. Holland, Rex E. Lee, Merrill J. Bateman and Cecil O. Samuelson.

Growing up in Provo, Thayer said his mother commonly used the phrase "work won't kill you."

"She demanded that we all work," he said. "To be lazy was terrible."

The Thayer family children were raised under humble circumstances during the 1940s, he said.

"We certainly didn't have very much money," he said. "By today's standards, we might be thought of as marginally poor, but we never thought of it. We never starved, always having food to eat."

Thayer held various jobs in his youth to help pay the bills, such as catching night crawlers, delivering newspapers, and washing dishes.

At 17, he joined the army and was sent to Frankfurt, Germany. A few years later, he was called to serve on a 30-month mission in that same place. Thayer later graduated from BYU, and went on to Stanford and the University of Iowa.

Thayer returned to BYU to teach creative writing and has been here ever since. He and his wife have six children.

Currently, he is working on a memoir called "Hooligan: A Mormon Boyhood" and a novel called "Beneath," according to the English Department. As a full-time professor and first counselor in a BYU student ward, he said he just keeps on going.

"I'll retire in the next year or two, I expect," he said. "But I still get to the office at quarter to 8, put in my forty five hours a week in the office. I'm in good health. I get paid well. I'm glad I'm still publishing. I enjoy being here. It's useful and significant."

Copyright Brigham Young University 11 May 2007