German Professor Emeritus Otmar Drekonja (pictured above right with his wife Ingrid) was a Fulbright grantee at Kent State University during the 1962-63 academic year and initially taught at Saint John’s part time, summer school, during the 1963-64 academic year.  After returning to Austria, he was recruited by Saint John’s to teach full time, beginning in 1967; his distinguished teaching career in the Department of Foreign Languages spanned 35 years.  He sparked renewed interest in German studies, teaching all levels in the department and inspiring students by his own intensely obvious love of German and Austrian literature and culture.  A native of Klagenfurt, Austria, Otmar also threw his incomparable energy into directing some fifteen groups, more than 200 students, on study abroad programs in Central Europe, including many semesters of the Salzburg Study Abroad Program which he himself founded in 1977.  Otmar’s contacts and keen interest in the former East Germany also allowed students of Saint John’s and Saint Benedict’s to study abroad behind the Iron Curtain and enabled many East German writers and scholars to travel to Minnesota.  Inside and outside the classroom, during the college years and beyond, Otmar’s untiring efforts to open his students’ eyes to a wider world have lead many of them to careers and relationships involving international cultural exchange.  His distinguished teaching career resonates in the personal and professional lives of generations of students.