Daniel Premo

Daniel Lawrence Premo, beloved professor at Washington College, international diplomat, and family man, passed away on July 4, 2023. 

At a senior awards luncheon in 2003 at Washington College, where he taught for 33 years, Dan Premo was asked what advice he had for students.  He replied, “I cannot offer any advice, you have to make your own way.”

Throughout his 88 years, Dan Premo made his own way, having a profound impact on his students, colleagues, the Chestertown community, friends, and family.  He was recognized as an expert in the field of United States Latin American Relations, publishing numerous articles on the region’s military and insurgency movements. 

Dan was the youngest of three children, born on October 1, 1934, in Muskegon, Michigan, at the height of the Great Depression.  His father, Owen Daniel Premo, was a civil engineer and inventor.  His mother, Alice May Morton, taught elementary school. 

Growing up, Dan had a passion for classical music, playing the cello in the high school orchestra, West Shore Symphony, and later the Kalamazoo Symphony.  He played three years of varsity baseball in high school.  Dan often said this was because he could hit a curve ball and would claim he was actually “three steps slow for any coach and any sport.”  Fishing was another life-long interest he developed at a young age on family visits to the Michigan Upper Peninsula.  

He graduated summa cum laude from Western Michigan University in 1956 with an B.A. in Spanish and Social Science, where according to an article in the University magazine he was known as an “outstanding student in social sciences and foreign languages.”  

He spent 1957 in Bogota, Colombia as a Buenos Aires Convention Fellow from the Organization of American States and worked as an Instructor in the Department of English at the University of the Andes.  This began a love of international travel that would last throughout his life.  

From 1958 to 1963 he worked for the U.S. Information Agency, serving as Assistant Director of the Binational Center in Guatemala City, Guatemala and Director of the Binational Center in Barranquilla, Colombia.  He would remain life-long friends with several of his colleagues in Latin America, staying in close contact and visiting frequently over the next fifty years.   

This experience would shape his future role in education.  As he later noted, “When I talk about elections, coups, and some of the more violent aspects of political behavior, I talk from experience.  I have been witness to some events.” 

Dan returned to the United States in 1965 to enter the Ph.D. program at the University of Texas at Austin.  This is where he met his wife, Rita Rienstra.  They were married on January 28, 1967, in Nederland, Texas.  Their son Chris was born a year later in 1968.  They lived in Bogota, Columbia for six months while Dan conducted research for his dissertation on populism and social class in Colombia.

In the fall of 1970, Dan and his young family moved to Chestertown, Maryland, where he accepted a joint appointment as an associate professor in History and Political Science at Washington College and began the school’s Latin American Studies Program.  He finished his Ph.D. in 1972 and was promoted to associate professor in 1974, the year his daughter Alison was born. 

In 1975, Dan survived a major heart attack.  For the rest of his life, he would prioritize his health and work to appreciate each day, often noting that he was living “on borrowed time.”   

In 1987, Dan was selected as the sixth Charles H. Hackley Distinguished Lecturer, delivering the keynote address at the Muskegon Museum of Art.  He noted that U.S. foreign policy was based on “out-of-date and out-of-focus” images of Latin American people even though the region had undergone economic, social, and political changes.  That same year he received the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching at Washington College. 

In 1988, Dan became the Chair of the Department of Political Science and International Studies and a year later was appointed the first Louis L. Goldstein Professor and Curator of the Goldstein Program in Public Affairs.  He and Rita spent six months in Grahamstown, South Africa in 1998 as the College’s first exchange professor at Rhodes University. 

During his career at Washington College, he traveled frequently to Latin America and published dozens of articles and papers.  He was active in several professional associations, including the American Political Science Association and the Latin American Studies Association.  Prior to the enactment of new U.S. government travel restrictions, Dan organized and directed Summer Seminars that allowed students to travel to Cuba. 

Dan took immense pleasure in teaching and working with students, bringing a multidisciplinary perspective to the classroom, and once said “objectivity is one of the most important criteria on which I’ve tried to base my teaching.”  One student expressed the view that “you leave the class thinking differently from when you came in.” 

Former students appreciated the time he took for them.  One student mentioned being moved by “having a professor who really cares about his students, both in and out of the class – who tries to learn about each student’s potential.” 

After retiring in 2003, Dan and Rita traveled and spent time with their family.  He continued to play duplicate bridge, earning the rank of Master, and directing several regular games in the area.  He shared his expertise as a guest lecturer on cruise ships traveling through Latin America, passing several times through the Panama Canal.  He actively and loyally followed several sports teams, including the Baltimore Orioles and his beloved Detroit Lions, Redwings, Pistons, and Tigers. 

Throughout his life, Dan remained committed to his family and the greater Chestertown community.  Over the years he coached sports teams for both Kent County and Chestertown Little League Baseball and the Church Youth Basketball League.  In his retirement he taught several courses for the Washington College Academy of Lifelong Learning and served a term as Special Events Committee Chair.      

More than anything, Dan always appreciated and valued his family, including many nieces and nephews in California, Texas, and Michigan.  He is survived by his wife of 56 years, Rita Rienstra Premo, son Christopher, grandsons Jacob and Jason Premo, daughter Alison Premo Black (James), and grandchildren Owen, Johannah, Evelyn, and Conrad.   He is preceded in death by his brother Douglas Premo (Ilknur) and Nancy Wallington (David). 

Friends, former students, and others are welcome to leave photos or a note for the family at https://www.mykeeper.com/profile/DanielPremo/.  In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation Doctors Without Borders, one of the many charities supported by Dan.