Prof. Rodney Clifton is among the pioneers in the development of experimental techniques for characterizing high-strain-rate material response, recognized with membership in the National Academy of Engineering in 1989 and the ASME Timoshenko Medal in 2000. This AMR audio interview tells his story from a modest background in a one-room country school, through his labor on the early construction of Interstate 80 in Nebraska, to research on computational techniques for wave propagation in elastic-plastic materials, innovative approaches to characterizing the viscoelastic response of vocal folds, and a life-long commitment to teaching and learning.