ORONO – Engineering usually doesn’t require a punch line, says Larry Matthews, dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Maine.

That’s one of the things Matthews learned from the former students of John R. Lyman, the retired professor of mechanical engineering who was honored Saturday during homecoming.

Six years ago, the college began celebrating the career of a distinguished professor emeritus. That tradition includes gathering humorous stories about the individual.

When the anecdotes about Lyman started pouring in, Matthews learned that although the octogenarian was well-regarded by generations of students, he wasn’t known for being funny. “That just wasn’t John’s style,” Matthews wrote in the introduction to the collection of stories about Lyman.

Lyman, 80, of Orono earned his degrees from Tufts after a stint in the U.S. Navy. He taught metallurgy, thermodynamics and materials engineering at UMaine from 1948 until his retirement in 1992. During students’ first three years, he referred to them by Mr. or Miss and their last names. Once they advanced to their senior years, however, the professor called them by their first names.

It was a comment Lyman made in the spring of 1967 that put Rodney L. Hanscom, 58, of Holden on the path that led him to become an environmental engineer. He works in the drinking water program in the Maine Bureau of Health.

Hanscom wrote that Lyman entered the classroom that morning, but instead of beginning his lecture, the professor peered intently out the window overlooking the mall for a few minutes before returning to the desk at the front of the room.

“He met our expectant gazes for a bit,” Hanscom wrote, “then returned to his post at the window and looked at the sky for another minute, slowly stroking his moustache before saying, ‘I read this morning about a proposed coal-fired power plant that’s to be constructed just west of Pittsburgh. In order to dissipate the particulate matter from the plant, they figure they’ve got to erect a 600-foot stack.’

“He walked back to his desk,” Hansom said, “looked again at each of us, and said with just the slightest hint of despair in his voice, ‘You know, they’re going to do it.’ He said nothing else about the matter, and let it sink in for only a moment before beginning his lecture. I didn’t consider this a particularly epiphanous moment at the time, but it sure stuck with me.”

Another award during Homecoming Weekend was presented to Denis Cranson, the former executive director of the Eastern Maine AIDS Network, for his work as a humanitarian. He headed the agency from 1990 to 2003.

Cranson, who earned his undergraduate degree in 1990 and his graduate degree in 1995, received the fifth Spirit of Maine Achievement Award. The Alumni Association gives the award each year to a person who has graduated in the past 15 years and whose “accomplishments, commitment and initiative in a profession, business or public service arena reflect the high standards and vitality of the University of Maine.”