Royek shared love of printing trade with MATC pupils

By JORDAN WEISSMANN
jweissmann@journalsentinel.com

Posted: Sept. 3, 2007

Walking its halls on a pair of prosthetic legs, Walter Royek was part of the old guard at Milwaukee Area Technical College.

He had taught printing there for 2 1/2 decades. He found beauty in the trade and a sense of civic duty. He also believed it could help lift people up to a better life. After all, it had lifted him.

"He was kind of the last of his generation in the department," said his 38-year-old son, David Royek.

Walter Royek died last week at Bay Area Medical Center in Marinette from heart failure. He was 65.

Born in 1942 to two factory workers, Royek was diagnosed with diabetes at age 8. He began taking insulin shots, and rather than allow the illness to put a clamp on his lifestyle, bought additional doses to self-medicate. That way, he figured, he could eat and drink more.

"It was a different time," David said.

Royek discovered his love for printing in high school. Working odd jobs, he paid his way through MATC, where he continued to learn the trade.

At age 20, Royek was a full-time journeyman printer, typesetting, proofreading and operating presses at various plants. By then he also had married Marlene Hebel and settled in Cudahy, where the two had met during middle school.

For Royek, printing meant more than just income, his son said. He saw his work through the lens of history and as a key part of democracy. He loved the look of the materials and the finished product.

So when Royek's career took off in earnest at Leo Lieberman Inc., it was a mixed blessing. There, he worked his way up to vice president of the small printing company. The money was good, and it helped support a growing family that included his son and two daughters. But the bureaucratic nature of the job bothered him.

In the early 1980s, he decided he would return to MATC and teach. There he found his passion.

"He really believed in that institution and what they do in terms of being a technical college," David said. "He liked helping people learn jobs that could still be careers for them."

He worked many hours, his son said, teaching night classes that kept him out until 9 or 10 p.m. His children would wait for him to come home, where he'd spend the last of his energy listening to stories about their days. He was a talker, a philosophically minded man who often answered questions with questions, trusting that deep inside, his children knew right from wrong.

"We could talk about anything with him without fear of reprisal," David said. "One of his favorite things to say was there was no good or evil, only the mind that makes it so. He didn't see things as black and white. He made allowances for people's mistakes."

In the late 1980s, Royek's health began to decline. A 1988 trip to the hospital for chest pains revealed heart problems and lung cancer. He overcame both, but the next year his diabetes forced doctors to amputate a leg. He lost his other leg a couple of years later.

All the while, he kept teaching. He updated his course to fit new trends such as desktop publishing, but over time, enrollment dropped. He took to working summers, cleaning and maintaining the MATC presses to earn extra money. He taught basic computer classes to keep a full course load until his health became too much of a hindrance.

He retired two years ago, retreating with Marlene to Morgan Lake, where the two had a country house.

In addition to his wife and son, survivors include daughters Kim Loeding, 44, and Michelle Royek, 40.