Meg Langfur’s class in forensic science at Mullen High School in Denver became one of the school’s most popular.
Students learned to “investigate” a crime scene that Langfur set up, gather information and argue the case of guilt or innocence before a “jury” of faculty members.
Langfur, who died April 23 at 47 after a 15-year battle with cancer, viewed herself as a teacher, storyteller and entertainer, she said in one of her last lectures.
She wrote the curriculum for the forensics class. She took the class to the Denver police crime lab and set up a “crime scene,” teaching students how to investigate a crime and that eyewitness testimony is often unreliable.
Langfur’s class was so popular that the school had to limit it to seniors, said her brother, Hal Langfur of Buffalo, N.Y.
“She wanted it to be compelling but not too horrifying,” he said.
She initiated other programs at the school, as well. She started an ecology program, helped sponsor a dinosaur dig in Wyoming, helped with an ecology trip to Costa Rica and supported a Young Democrats’ chapter, said Tim Schmeckpeper, assistant principal.
She joked that she was “a Jewish woman teaching at a Catholic School, while trying to be a Buddhist.”
Near the end of her life, Langfur talked about her imminent death. She said that there was “very little to be learned from dying,” but “what you do in life is most important,” and a person’s achievements are second to “what you help others to achieve,” said Sheldon Steinhauser, in a eulogy at her service.
Her frustrations with her medical treatment sometimes caused “pessimism, stubbornness and anger” he said, but “overall she was courageous, so determined to fight and refusing to quit,” Steinhauser said.
Though she knew she was dying, she also did everything she could to live before dying, friends and relatives said.
Langfur took a sailing trip in the Bahamas (she had previously taught sailing) and went to Washington, D.C., for the presidential inaugural. Because her movements were limited by her wheelchair, she missed it, but did manage to see the Obamas up close in the parade.
“No moss grew on that rolling stone,” Schmeckpeper said.
“It would have been easy for her to get caught up in her long suffering,” her brother said. “She was very involved in her treatment, but she never let the illness destroy her capacity to live. And she lived through some things (operations, hospitalizations and treatments) that would have absolutely leveled the rest of us.”
Meg Isabel Langfur was born in Denver on April 14, 1962, and was reared in Littleton.
In high school she did an internship with the Littleton Police Department, riding in cars with officers, and was a dispatcher for Flight for Life, her brother said.
She earned a bachelor’s degree in general science at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and a masters in general science at the University of Colorado Denver. Before joining the Mullen staff 12 years ago, she managed her late father’s construction business.
In addition to her brother, Langfur is survived by her sister-in-law, Kerry Reynolds, of Buffalo; her niece, Devon Reynolds; and her nephew, Bridger Langfur. She was preceded in death by her parents, Bert and Rosalyn Langfur, and her sister, Susan Langfur.
Virginia Culver: 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com
