Even before she started kindergarten, Patricia Richard was destined to become a historian. Growing up in a family where the patriarch was a Pearl Harbor survivor, she learned early about history. "When I was five years old I knew that on Dec. 7, 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor." Both her mother and her father, a survivor of the U.S.S. Tennessee, were "incredible storytellers."

Once she entered college, Richard studied history. While earning her Ph.D. at Marquette University in Wisconsin, Richard began to focus on an earlier period in American history. As much as World War II captured her interest, she was struck by the Civil War and the role women played, especially the 20,000 who served as volunteer nurses in military hospitals. "They had to overcome 19th-century ideals about what a woman was supposed to do and not do. Everything seemed stacked against them," Richard said. She hopes to someday to write a screenplay about Mary Ann Bickerdyke, known as "mother" by the troops she tended. "She exhibited and exuded such courage."

Now a second-year history professor, Richard teaches courses on the Civil War, the U.S. and Vietnam and other American history courses. And she remains involved in Pearl Harbor history. She often invites her father, George Richard, to speak to her history students about his experiences.

"In a world in which we have very few heroes, these guys really stand out," Richard says of her father and his combat mates. The talks make a strong impression on her students, many who are the same age as her father was during the Pearl Harbor attack.

Richard is also helping her husband, Clifton Simmons, orchestrate a dramatic reading to recreate the events aboard the U.S.S. Tennessee the day Pearl Harbor was attacked.

U.S.S. Tennessee Memories: the Pearl Harbor Story, will be presented on Wednesday, Dec. 3, from 4-6 p.m. in Tivoli room 640. The reading is sponsored by the Phi Alpha Theta Honors Society, Richard and history Professor Jennifer Wynot. Four readers, including history Professor Dolph Grundman, will tell the story of the sailors aboard the Tennessee in the first person, using actual battle reports filed by the ships after the attack and hundreds of Tennessee sailor interviews. Simmons, the historian for the U.S.S. Tennessee Reunion Association and a professional naval ship modeler, will act as narrator.

Special guests will include George Richard and members of the Colorado Chapter of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association.

"It's important for people to remember and understand what these men did for our country. This is a very special opportunity for students to learn more about Pearl Harbor and to meet some of the survivors," Richard said.