Miles L. Bausch spent 30 years teaching business to high school students and longer than that selling antiques, bringing a fun-loving passion to educating others through both endeavors.

Mr. Bausch, of Allegheny West, died of pneumonia Monday at Allegheny General Hospital. He overcame a 1991 leukemia diagnosis to live in good health most of his later years. He was 71.

He invested much of his energy over the past two decades in Miles Douglas Galleries, the antiques shop he started on the North Side with Doug Lucas before they moved to the Strip District in the 1990s within the Mahla Antiques warehouse.

The pair first met in the early 1970s, when Mr. Bausch was a part-time dealer selling at markets while also teaching business courses at Trinity Area High School in Washington County. Mr. Lucas bought some items from him at a show at a Castle Shannon firehall, which led to a business relationship, which led to a friendship, which led to the two of them living together as partners for the past three decades.

Mr. Bausch was the talkative salesman of their enterprise, using people skills he honed as a youngster selling fruits and vegetables from his farming family's produce stand in Fairview, Erie County. He combined that outgoing nature with a keen knowledge of old glassware, particularly pieces from Pittsburgh's era as a glassmaking center in the 19th century.

Collectible glass and jewelry were among the items the pair sold annually at The Antiques Fair at The Meadows, a large show at the Washington County racetrack where many buyers flocked to see the pieces that had been obtained over the past year by Mr. Bausch and Mr. Lucas.

The partners placed distinctive glassware throughout their 128-year-old home on Beech Avenue, a four-story Victorian dubbed "The Museum" that has been part of their neighborhood's Old Allegheny House Tour.

Mr. Bausch helped numerous North Side neighbors select antiques for their own residences. His own treasure, in addition to glassware, included more than 1,000 antique Christmas ornaments collected over the years.

Mr. Bausch was also coordinator for years of an annual "progressive dinner" in Allegheny West, in which one to two dozen friends would move from home to home during the evening to eat one course of a meal at a series of dwellings. It suited the sociable and well-organized personality of someone who taught high school bookkeeping, typing and related skills from 1959 to 1989.

He was known to students, teachers, buyers, collectors, neighbors and others for a jovial demeanor marked by a distinctive and frequent laugh, or giggle.

"You knew Miles was coming before you saw him, from hearing his voice or laugh," said Nicky Roy, a fellow dealer at the Mahla Antiques warehouse.

He said Mr. Bausch had a knack for focusing on whomever he was speaking to at the time, comprehending their interests as buyers or individuals, and undertaking a plan to help them.

His conversational skills and knowledge of antiques were admired by public television producer Rick Sebak, who made Mr. Bausch one of the featured interviewees in a 2001 national documentary about flea markets.

Mr. Bausch was a founding member of the Three Rivers Depression Era Glass Society and a past president of the Historical Glass Club of Pittsburgh. He gave presentations frequently about Pittsburgh's role in glassmaking to local organizations, and was involved annually in the Glass Collectors Expo at the Senator John Heinz History Center.

In addition to Mr. Lucas, he is survived by his brother, John Bausch of Venango, Crawford County.

Friends will be received from 5 to 8 p.m. today at the Stephen M. Brady Funeral Home, 920 Cedar Ave., Central North Side. There will also be a viewing Friday at the Van Maeder Funeral Home in Cambridge Springs, Crawford County.