Eufaula High School history teacher Roger Thompson, noted for his trademark bowtie and suits and love of travel, has decided to retire.

After retirement he probably still will be seen sporting his bowtie, a dapper suit and his round glasses with a black frame.

Thompson wears the bowtie in honor of one of his favorite historical figures, Winston Churchill.

He wears suits in honor of the subject he teaches and out of respect for his profession.

“I dearly love teaching. I’ve taught for 44 years and it’s hard to quit, but I just felt like it was time,” said Thompson, 71, who has spent his adult life traveling the world, beginning with a stint in the navy at the age of 19.

Graduation 2024 was his last day on the faculty at Eufaula, where he has been a mainstay for more than 30 years, teaching generations of students about Churchill and an array of other historical figures and events.

Though his school career may be ending, his travel avocation is not.

Saturday morning, following the graduation ceremony, he started with a group of 40 people on a journey that is taking them first to England, where they will visit Winston Churchill’s home at Chartwell, and his burial site at St. Martin’s Church in Bladon near Woodstock, Oxfordshire.

The travelers will go to Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London and to Eisenhower’s D-Day headquarters at Southwick House in Hampshire and to the National Museum of the Royal Navy in Portsmouth where they will see the 246-year-old warship H.M.S. Victory, Lord Nelson’s flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.

Then they will take a ferry across the English Channel to Normandy, following the route taken by troops on DDay, June 6, 1944. From there it’s on to Versailles, France and Paris.

Thompson never tires of traveling, either with a group or alone.

“Kipling said ‘Down to Gehenna, or up to the Throne, He travels the fastest who travels alone,’” Thompson said.

Traveling is in his blood.

Maybe because he was born in the little town of Marlow, in Stephens County.

“I’d never been anywhere,” he said.

But his father had, and he told his son about his adventures.

“My dad was born in 1915. He was 15 or 16 when the Depression hit, and he hopped freight trains looking for work. He went to all 48 states. Then he went into the service in World War II and then Korea. He had stories about all the places he had seen. That encouraged me to travel. I’ve always liked that. What’s over the next hill?”

He graduated from high school in 1971 and immediately went into the Navy, spending four years traveling to all sorts of exotic places.

“I graduated on May 18, 1972 and was on my way to boot camp on Aug. 28,” he said.

He was assigned to the USS Harmon, a destroyer escort. It was the first Navy ship named in honor of an African American.

After four years in the Navy, he attended East Central University and then the University of Oklahoma, majoring in history.

There was never any doubt about what he was going to do. His passion is history. He lives and breathes the subject.

The late OU Professor J. Rufus Fears once told Thompson, “Blessed is the man who actually finds what he wants to do in life.”

“Fortunately for me, I found what I wanted to do, and this is what I wanted,” he said.

He began taking students on tours in 1982 when he taught in Wynnewood.

He continued the trips when he came to Eufaula in 1991, eventually alternating between domestic and foreign excursions.

Often the same people join the trips, but there are always new faces.

Some of those are second and third generation travelers.

Thompson plans the itinerary.

“These are history tours, not vacations, not getaways. We’re on the go from early in the morning to late at night,” he said.

And he runs a tight ship.

“I’m not their friend. I tell them my number one priority is to bring them back safe and so you do what I say,” he said.

It’s been a lifetime of travel, adventures and new experiences.

Though he may not be teaching, he will be learning – continuing to travel alone or in groups.

“As I say to students, traveling is the best education in the world,” Thompson said.

He has lots of ideas for future travels.

He wants to go up the Hudson River Valley and visit battlefields. Go out to Pearl Harbor. Maybe go to Auschwitz. Visit national parks. More trips to Washington D.C.

“When I was working on my master’s degree, I did a lot of things on the American West, a lot on the Indian Wars. I started reading about medical care in the Civil War – medicine always advances in wartime. I sort of extended that to the Indian Wars and wrote a couple of papers on that,” he said.

He envisions more research, maybe a book.

“I’m just throwing things around,” he said.

He knows when school starts again in the fall it will be a difficult time for him.

“Next year when it’s time for school to start, I’m going to miss it. Retirement is really complicated, I found out,” he said. “I’ve taught for 44 years, and it’s hard to quit … but I just have a feeling it’s time.”

He encourages students to become teachers.

“Teaching isn’t a job, it’s a profession,” he said. “There’s never been a more important time in history than now for good people to go into teaching.”

He’s especially proud of Eufaula schools, calling it an excellent place to learn.

Right now, he said, there are four Eufaula graduates who have full scholarships at prestigious universities – including Duke, Stanford, Columbia and West Point.

Once, when he led a tour in England, he met up with two Eufaula graduates – one at Oxford and one at Cambridge.

“We’ve always had strong academics here, and I think it will continue,” he said.

Thompson, who lives in Pierce with his family of three dogs and a cat, has enjoyed his life in education and travel.

“I’m just grateful that everything has turned out the way it has. It’s a wonderful life.”