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ohiotoday asked Dabelko questions about the man behind the scholar via email.

What would you do if you were invisible for a day?

I’d sit next to a watering hole in the Serengeti during the great migration.

If you could choose your own nickname, what would it be?

While I didn’t choose it, I’d have to say “Prof.” It is my trail name, given to me by friends in Kosovo during our Balkans Environmental Peacebuilding study abroad program. Prof is their way to acknowledge the informality of the trail, yet show respect to the old professor who tries hard to keep up on the steep trails of the Accursed Mountains.

What’s your favorite thing about one of your grandparents?

Curiosity to travel, even when it isn’t easy. The three I knew well all had it.

Would you rather win an Olympic medal, an Academy Award, or the Nobel Peace Prize?

That’s an easy one. Nobel Peace Prize. It would mean a life well lived.

What’s your favorite childhood book?

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. My mother read it to my sister and me throughout our first big Western camping trip that started with a stop in Hannibal, Missouri, to appreciate the enormity of that river and our adventures that lay ahead.

Name three authors you most admire.

Rachel Carson, who shows us prose can be beautiful, science-based, and make a difference. Edward Abbey, who captures the majesty and ugliness of the American West, using sarcasm so you can laugh instead of cry. And Meigs County’s Ambrose Bierce, for laying bare in very few words the excruciating personal cost of a country at war with itself.

What is the most important lesson life has taught you?

Be decent and it will come back around.