Thomas R. Banks

Thomas R. Banks was born in St. Paul, Minnesota on September 26, 1941, the son of Thomas W. and Maybelle R. Banks. He and Ina Duncan married in 1967. His beloved Ina Duncan Banks died in 1989, at 43. He died on Thursday May 7, 2026, at 85, at Friendship Manor, Rock Island, Illinois. He is survived only by two sisters-in-law, Kathleen McLaughlin and Diane Furlong both living in Florida, and a niece, nephew, and grandnieces.

Tom was raised in St. Paul, where he had a paper route, and then an after-school job at a neighborhood grocery whose owner, a skillful butcher, he remembered fondly.. As a first generation college student at the University of Minnesota he came under the influence of gifted teachers and great books that enlarged his horizons and led him to embrace with increasing passion the ideals of the liberal arts tradition. He took courses with poet John Berryman. He read Joseph Campbell, in whose books he found a rich, wide map of human possibility and aspiration that he held in mind all his life. He came in time to feel most deeply at home in study of the history and literature of ancient Greece and Rome. He graduated B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. in Classics.

He joined the Augustana College faculty in 1974. For most of his 33 year career he was the only full time teacher in Classics. He and colleagues invented a “triad” curriculum that allowed Classics majors and ordinary general education elective students meeting together in many of the same courses but meeting appropriately different requirements. The courses were popular, often full. Students enjoyed his classes no less than he did. He won the Sears Roebuck Foundation Award for Teaching Excellence in 1989. In 2002 he became the first holder of the Dorothy Parkander Professorship in Literature. A trusted steward of the institution no less than of his small department, he was invariably elected to the faculty senate.

He retired in 2007, but continued to assist at intervals in college matters. And he kept studying, thinking, and learning, attending to new developments in many fields, including psychology and neuroscience, AI, and most recently chatbots. He maintained contacts with former students. He was in love with language, and an uncommonly attentive listener to written and spoken words. He was learning Korean in his last years.

From early 2025 to his death he followed closely the situation in Minnesota neighborhoods and streets he knew well, praising and proudly supporting Twin Cities citizens standing with, feeding, hiding, and defending neighbors.

As he wished, the body has been cremated, he insisted that there be no ceremony. His remains were buried on May 26th, at Rock Island Memorial Park. A small group of friends, former students, and colleagues observed the burial.

He left his whole estate to Augustana in order to establish and perpetuate the Thomas R. and Ina M. Banks Chair in Classics. The college and the Classics department plan an observance and grateful remembrance of him, his wife, and this gift during the next academic year.

Memorials are preferred, he wrote, “to Augustana College or a charity.” Donors wishing to direct contributions to be included in the new endowment for the Banks chair are welcome to do so.

Online condolences may be shared at TrimbleFuneralHomes.com.