Teachers who shared their memories of Pioneer at a gathering in December, 1997.
Click on the picture for a larger image.
At the beginning of the 1997-98 school year, superintendent of schools John Gordon asked the principals of the twelve Wenatchee schools to record a history of their school. At Pioneer, assistant principal Dan Wilson took responsibility for the project. Working with library media specialist Linda Riesterer, it was decided to create an Internet web page about Pioneer, with students researching and creating pages covering the span of several years. In this, the first year of the project, two students have written about two periods of Pioneer history. In future years, other students will be encouraged to contribute pages about other years from Pioneer's past.
Mr. Wilson invited several former and present teachers who had been at Pioneer for a number of years to sit down and reminisce about our school. The following are excerpts of what they had to say about working at and being a part of the Pioneer experience.
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Teachers who shared their memories of Pioneer at a gathering in December, 1997. Click on the picture for a larger image. |
Bill McPhee: I've told everybody that I've talked to what a great bunch I worked with at Pioneer. I really feel like we had a superior group of teachers all around the building.
I had a problem at home the last three months. I had dry rot--in the house, under the house. When I called a contractor to come out and take a look at it, it was like taking roll call who appeared. Jagla, Volkman, Knapp. Knapp said to me, "I'm not sure I want to get underneath that school because I still remember the time I crawled down underneath the room. You know my classroom there was a floor plank that came up. He and my future attorney crawled underneath the house and when they came up I was waiting for them with a stick. Knapp said, "If I go underneath your house am I going to have to have a hack?" But it was fun talking to them. You know that's another amazing thing, how many former students you meet from time to time who have grown up to be such great people. Anyway, like I say I have fond memories of all of you and all the students.
Dan Wilson: Bill was doing some subbing here in the building two years ago, I believe it was, and we had kind of a hot shot kid who had a real short fuse and was always looking for an excuse to fire back at somebody. The boy came up to me and he was ready to file a lawsuit. He said, "I'm gonna sue that guy down there." And I said, "Who you talkin' about?" And he said, "That old guy." And I remembered that Bill had come in the building that morning as a sub and I said, "You mean Mr. McPhee?" He said, "I don't know what his name is, but I'm gonna sue him." So I wanted to know why and he said, "He's calling me names." And I said, "What did he call you?" And he said, "Buster." And I said, "Hey Dude, don't worry about it man. Just stay cool. Hey, Dude, you're all right. Just calm down, Dude." And he kind of looks at me and he says, "Okay, I'm calm now." And I said, "Aren't you going to sue me, too?" And he said," Why would I want to sue you?" And I said, "Well, I was just calling you some names. What'd I just call you?" And he said, "Well, you called me Dude. You know, and you told me to stay cool." And I said, "Well, back in Mr. McPhee's day, Buster is just like calling someone Dude. " And he said, "It was?" And I said, "Yeah. He wasn't trying to offend you. He didn't know your name, he's new in the building and he called you Buster, just like I called you Dude." And he said, "Hey, cool!" And walked out of my office.
Pat Hilscher: I remember Marguerite Bloomhagen. She was our art teacher--and I remember in those days women were not allowed to wear pants. We had to have skirts. And I wasn't allowed by Mr. Wile to come up into the building because I was wearing shorts all the time because I taught PE. Marguerite, I think, was the first woman to ever wear pants. And she did it at Pioneer, and everyone was like "Man, she's gonna get fired! She's gonna get fired!" It broke the ice. I think within the next week I think all the women were finally wearing pants.
Some of the stories I could tell about Groche in PE! For a new girl, straight out of college, it was an experience! But I had a bad habit. We're not supposed to give our keys to our students and, I was fresh, I gave my keys to my TAs all the time. The one thing I remember the most about was a day, I'd given my keys to one of my TAs. And I couldn't find my keys. I called around the class, "Where are my keys?" "Well, I left them on the clipboard." My clipboard? So I went out to find my clipboard. It was left outside and there were no keys. Now I'm really worried because I didn't want to tell Mr. Wile I'd lost my keys. And, so pretty soon--this is noon--Groche comes out and he says, "Hey, Pat, what are you doin'?" I said, "I can't find my dang keys!" And he says, "Oh." Well at that time special ed had PE during lunch time. He said, "I saw some of the kids in special ed throw some keys around. Maybe they were yours." And I'm thinking, "Oh, no!" So, he goes out and he says, "Well, I'll help you look for them." And he has me searching that whole football field. And I'm walking really slowly up and down the field trying to find these keys. I have about forty keys on my key chain. And he'd bend down every once in awhile and pick one up. Just enough that it kept me looking. He had my keys in his pocket the whole time! I'll never forget that. You know, I still give my keys to the kids.
Pat Christiansen: Speaking of wearing pants, when I came in '58, Vern and I bought bicycles because we thought it'd be really fun to ride bikes to school instead of driving. Well, guess what? Dan [Wile] wouldn't let me in the school with a pair of pants on! So, Vern rode his bike and I drove the car because I had to wear a skirt! But, that's a story of how things have changed. We used to wear those high, high heels. Oh, I don't know how we did it. And do you remember the teas that Mrs. Bushnell used to put on and I used to put on the style shows for our mothers? Oh, that was really quite an ordeal. And then, talking about hacks, I remember one boy who was just the worst troublemaker! But I remember I had him; I was teaching science in the home ec room. And I had him and he did something and that was it! And so I had to go out, get Bob Pell from across the hallway to come and witness. Bob came and I asked to use his tennis shoe because I didn't have anything to hit the kid with. Bob came and bent him over and took his wallet out of his back pocket. And so, boy, I swung that tennis shoe and I missed!! I was so furious by then. But, you know, he behaved himself after that. I got him the second time.
Coy Magahee: After you retire there are people ask you what were the most enjoyable years working for the school district. I always think of Pioneer. There's no question about the better years. It was at Pioneer that it seemed like we had the best friends and the best, oh, I guess you'd say, team members. Everybody was willing to work toward one goal and that was to make the kids better and I think that's what happened.
John Beard: One of my memories of Pioneer was my first year. I had a sixth period math class that was getting a little bit unruly. And I told them two or three times "Be quiet, be quiet," and they wouldn't. So I told them, "Okay, tomorrow everyone's going to stay an hour after school." I went on, and school was almost over, and I got to thinking about it a little bit. I told the kids, "Now, if you ride the bus, be sure that you make arrangements." I went up and talked to Chuck [Hayes] and I said, "I told the kids that everyone had to stay after school for an hour, tomorrow." And he kind of looked at me and he said, "Well, what about bus?" I said, "Well, I told all the kids to make arrangements." Well, okay. So the next day 3:00 came and the kids were ready to go and I said, "Whoa, whoa, hey we got an hour. One more hour." So they hemmed and hawed, but nobody said a word and I went around to every student "Are you a bus rider?" "Yeah" "Did you make arrangements?" "Yeah" "Are you a bus rider?" "No." "Are you a bus rider?" The whole route. About 3:35 in the afternoon over the intercom the secretary said, " Mr. Beard?" And I said,"Yeah." "Do you have Suzie Smith down there?" "Yes, I do." "Well, her mother's up here and wants to know how she's getting home." And so, I think I sent Suzie up to the office. After school was out Dan Wile came down and just read me the riot act. I mean, he really let me have it. And when he was done, I threw my books on the floor and I said, "I don't have to take this. I quit! I'm not gonna come back and do this." Well, Jim Tarbert, right across the hall heard me and came in and said, "What's the matter?" And I said, "I'm not gonna take this. I'll do something else. I'm 21 years old. I'll do something else!" And Jim kind of got a little snicker on his face and said, "I'm not really sure I should tell you this, John. But when Dan left your room, he was smiling."
Bonita Offutt: During my first year I came as the mother of four children, all under four at that time. I was very concerned about what I was doing here. I came in the middle of the year because one of our staff members was pregnant. So I walked into teaching language arts. I was a home ec. major. Language arts probably wasn't my strongest suit. But I took over and various members were always there. "Try this lesson plan. It'll work for you. Trust me. It'll work." "Well, do I have to learn it first?" "Well, it's probably appropriate to." So I would try to stay several pages ahead of the books. And I got through the year. And, boy, that summer did I ever work trying to really learn the material!
Larry Offutt: A couple of things come to my mind. We always think of Pioneer being kind of strict and pretty traditional. But look at what happened in about 1965-66 when they added the 400 wing and they put in the special ed department down at the end of 400 wing. This was, I think, about the only time maybe in eastern Washington when we began to integrate special education into the regular program. I think Pioneer was one of the leaders in that area. Mrs. Perkins ran the department and did a beautiful job. Dee Kerr and Lou Corulli and of course Cecil Thompson was in there. My room was down next to them and I'll tell you those people had unlimited patience working with those kids. They did a great job.
In 1965 or '66, it was a kind of a given that husbands and wives did not teach in the same building. But here at Pioneer there were three of us, three couples. Bushnells, Skates, and the Offutts. And this was unusual. It was possible at that time that some lucky or unlucky student could have an Offutt four times out of six times in a day!
Sandy O'Donnell: I had the privilege of teaching in that 400 wing in special education for quite a few years and we had some pretty hair-raising experiences over those years. I kind of trained and taught under Mary Perkins, too. A typical example, I guess of my introduction to special ed kids was the time I can remember when Pioneer just changed the rule that you couldn't go to the bathroom except between periods. This girl stands up about half way through the period and says, "I gotta go to the bathroom." I said, "No. You know what the rule is. We just changed that the other day and you have to wait until the period's over." She threw her books down and the floor and she looked at me and said, "Well, I'm just gonna pee right here." I said, "You can just start peeing because you're not going anywhere." But, that was a real typical example of the kind of stuff that we were dealing with. We usually got through most of it.
One the fun things that I remember is being able to go down and borrow boxing gloves from Dave Groche. I used to take my kids down because they were real aggressive. They were hard core banditos.
I used the computer games as a kind of a reinforcer in my classroom, as a privilege once their work was done. This one kid never ever made it to the computer so he figured it out. He crawled into one of my cupboards. After school at night he waited until I left the building. He crawled into one of my cupboards and hid until everybody left the school. And then of course it got dark and he spent the whole night on my computer. The only mistake he made was he had to go to the bathroom and when he went out the door he set off the alarm. I got notified in the morning by the principal that "One of your students is still in the building and he was here all night." And I chuckled because I thought that was pretty ingenious really. He got his twelve hours on the computer.
Gene Gnagy: I was pastor of the church on the corner of Okanogan and Peachy before I came here to teach. I heard that Pioneer was strict and traditional. And I thought, well, strict might have been right but traditional I couldn't say that that was quite right because when I came I didn't feel that my assignment was quite traditional. I'm not sure they called me a resource teacher, but I was to come in and identify students who were having difficulty making the transition from sixth grade to seventh grade. I was told to take about a month or six weeks and then I'd have some students that I could work with. Well, it sounded good on paper but I'm not sure that's the way it really worked. Then finally, that program that I came in was, I guess, brushed aside or had fulfilled its purpose and then I taught language arts and math. Then I ended up full time math. And I enjoyed it. I've always enjoyed being a teacher. I think a lot of people felt, " You're really in for it. Here you're a priest and you're going to be a teacher." I felt that I was really received as the person I am. I remember, Dick Comstock told me one day a young lady in his class asked him a question and he said, "Oh, that's out of my realm. You go ask Mr. Gnagy, he's the priest." I think one of the things I enjoy most is when I'll walk into a store downtown somewhere and someone will say, "Do you remember me?" Goodness sakes, I haven't a clue! They've changed so much, but here you see somebody you probably thought wouldn't make it in the real world. And they've got a job and a family and are responsible and doing a great job about it.
Dennis Rae: I came to Pioneer, I believe it was '68. There was a whole slug of us who came. Pat Hilscher and John Beard. Jim Turner. Jim Tarbert. About eight of us? Anyway, there was a big turnover. Those were the years when teachers were fairly scarce and you could move around fairly easily. Around the state even. I came here from Seattle. Taught there two years and it was fairly easy to find a job some place. I taught five years at Columbia and a wrestling job opened up here at Pioneer and I kind of like wrestling so I applied up here and Dan [Wile] hired me. I think the most enjoyable parts of my experience here at Pioneer was in the coaching. And of course, being involved with the mathematics here. I'll start with the math first. We had chairmen just like they do in the high school, and departments. And that was a good idea. I really enjoyed those math meetings. Bill [McPhee] was our chairman of our department. He tried to arrange, and it was very difficult to do, that we had prep times together. And for those of us that did, we'd go down into that smoke filled room called the faculty room, next to the cafeteria. It was blue with smoke! Bill and I would try and figure out the answers to the story problems that we'd assigned. Old Bill was adamant. "Nope. Can't look in the solution book. We're going to figure it out." But that was fun.
The other area that I really enjoyed was the coaching of football and wrestling. Big Red [Walt Shoftstoll] and John Beard and I coached seventh and eighth grade for a long time. Football season started with us all picking three even teams. Big Red said, "I don't care. Pick anybody you want." So, we'd start picking quarterbacks. We'd line them all up into three teams. Maybe we'd make an adjustment or two. Old Red would look at us. "Well, what do you guys want? Take what you want." Then he'd say, "Okay, I'll take that one." And he'd play some of the craziest plays. I can remember the banana split? He'd come back from a game over at Orchard, he'd be laughing. "We ran that banana split and we scored!" Beard and I tried and we'd get caught for a loss. We'd laugh about that and have a real good time. I started coaching with the wrestling and Bob Pell started out helping me and then John. I talked John into coming out when Bob retired from wrestling and we had some really good times coaching wrestling with those kids.
John Beard: Remember the first time that we tied Moses Lake?
Dennis Rae: Yes. It was down to the heavyweight match. Brian Snyder was a heavyweight. It came down to the heavyweight match and I can't remember if he pinned him or just tied him, but it ended up whatever he did we tied Moses Lake and that was a significant experience because normally we'd go over there and we wouldn't even win a match. I remember Rick Calwell was the state champ at the high school level but when I wrestled Frontier the first time Rick was the only one that won a match for the team, JV through varsity. That kind of turned around the last couple of years we wrestled. We even beat them a few times. The most significant one was when we wrestled Frontier the second to the last season and we blanked them. They didn't win a match.
Bob Butcher: Pioneer has been my only job. How many people in their lives can say they've had one job in their life and have really thoroughly enjoyed it? I taught shop up in the end of the 200 wing for 25 years. At that time I think we had Butcher, Beard, Beglau, Bloomhagen, Barngrover. We were called the B wing there for awhile. One of the funny stories I want to tell on myself. I don't have a lot of extra insulation, so on my prep period, I'd usually sit up there on the heater. Now we had these little heaters up there in the 200 wing and, of course, it could be kind of of stressful at times, so I'd just kind of veg out on this heater and I'd read a book or something or just kind of sit there and enjoy the heat and warm up a little bit. So one day I was sitting there and I was thinking, "You know, this is my twenty-second year of teaching. I've been here teaching twenty-two years." And then it hit me--I'm 44 years old. I've spent half my life sitting on this blinking heater! But those were good years. I really enjoyed the shop up there. The kids just had a lot of fun. A lot of kids would come up to me and say, "Mr. B, how's this project?" I'd say, "Well, it's great." They'd say, "When is it done?" I said, "Well, when you can take it up to Mr. DeJong or Mr. Taylor and you can say, with pride, 'This is what I made in shop. Look Mr. Taylor, I made this in shop.' Then it's done." Because, when it was done was different for every student, you know. And I just wanted to raise every kid to the elevated level of the best that they could do.
Dave Groche: Well, I started in the 400 wing, down by the special ed department, just next door to them. Cecil Thompson used to tell me a few of the things he went through down there. He said one day he had a little time before lunch hour so he was just talking to the kids and this one kid says, "Say, Mr. Thompson, if I come to school every day will I have perfect intendance?" Cec says, "You mean attendance, don't you?" And some other smart aleck over here says, "Yeah, stupid. Your intendence are in your stomach!"
I remember I used to save a lot of the excuses from kids that didn't want to take PE. One of my best ones was one, a kid brought it to me and it said, "Please excuse Billy from PE today." Signed by his mother, his father, and myself.
One thing I have to tell you about. I was invited to play on a 50 and over softball team. Oh, it's been about three or four, five years ago. I went over there and one of the guys on that team was a kid I'd had in class and, oh man, he'd already been there about three years! So I turned them down. I got out of that.
John Gordon: I'm the superintendent of Wenatchee School District and I've challenged the principals to look at their history. I think that it's very important that you know from whence you came and to keep that in mind and to build those traditions. I think one of the big things in my goal is that I think staff members and students have gotten away from tradition. I think it's very important to understand tradition and where you've been.
I am a student and a child of North Central Washington. I went to Whitman School in 1951. After the second year of my schooling, I went to Winthrop and was there the rest of my time. My dad was an ironworker and we jumped from dam site to dam site. My brother was in 16 elementary schools by the time he was in the fifth grade. I understand how to empathize with the itinerant student and the itinerant worker. But I want to share a story with you that's a Pioneer story. A different one than the one about getting stopped by Chief Haines when I was in junior college and I was flipping brodies out in the Pioneer parking lot. He stopped me then and we had a chat.
But probably my best impression of Pioneer was when we looked forward to coming to the Pioneer gym and playing in the district tournament. That was the big thing. We'd walk in here and try to figure how much hay we could store in it. But we played a championship game that has been typified as the greatest district championship basketball game ever played and it was played in the Pioneer gym. It was Winthrop against PD. Nick Babcock [sports reporter for the Wenatchee World] wrote it up a few years ago as the best game ever. I was a part of that team from Winthrop. It was a hard fought game, lost in the last second by one point--41 to 40. And I can remember I was so frustrated at the time I ran down to Pat's locker room, ran down those stairs. As I got down to the bottom I realized nobody was following me because they were waiting for the trophy presentation upstairs. Just as I got down there I saw somebody had placed one of those big old metal garbage cans or towel buckets that right in the middle of where I was going. It was very opportune because I kicked it as hard as I could. It flew across the room, hit against the wall, slid down the wall, and about the time it was sliding down the wall Dick Piper [sports writer for the Wenatchee World] was coming out of what is now Pat's office with the two trophies, the championship trophy and the sportsmanship trophy. He looked at me and he said, "John, you need to come back upstairs because we need to present you with the sportsmanship trophy for the tournament." Dick never said a word about that in all the time that followed. So I have a tie to Pioneer. I have a very close tie and every time I walk down to the gym I think about that garbage can flying across the wall and seeing Dick's head sticking out around the corner.
Mrs. Wile: I remember one Halloween night. It happened to be on a Saturday. Dan and I had gone to church on Sunday and Dan said, "I'm going to drive around by the school and see whether there was any damage." We parked out here toward the gymnasium and he got out and here was all this graffiti on the side of the building. No windows broken, but there was various uncomplimentary signs. And we both stood there and cried because it was a fairly new building and Dan had had such pride in it. He said, "I'm going home and get something to bring up here and take all that graffiti off." He went home and on the way he said, "Well I suppose I should call Hal Close" because he was superintendent at that time. So he did and Hal said, "Well, I'll come over to the building and see what it's like." And he came over and kind of looked at it and said, "Well that's typical Halloween, isn't it?" And he sort of made light of it and Dan said, "Well I'm going to take it off." And Hal said, "No, you're not. You're going to leave it for the kids to see in the morning because it will probably be a reminder that they can't do these kind of things. If the culprit is caught he'll be punished." And so Dan went home not feeling very well about it, but I'm sure that the next morning there was an assembly meeting and he indicated that this was not the kind of thing that was to be done. That they had responsibility for the upkeep of the building, that they would have pride in it and that this should not happen. And Hal kept saying maybe somebody would confess. They never did until years and years later when some businessman from town came up to Dan and apologized. He said, "I was the culprit that did that."
Remember when we had those old bleachers? One night we came down the steps from a football game and Dan fell through the one plank. Way down! And Paul Ferguson was superintendent at that time and he was so worried for fear Dan was going to sue the school district. He had a man go around the next day to all those bleachers and patch all the places that were weak and then he worked like mad, I think, to get those metal bleachers put up there.
Remember that there was an original name of Pioneer when we first started in and that was quickly changed. It was called Pioneer Park Junior High School. And it wasn't very long before it began to be called PP Junior High School and that quit quick. That was the end of that!
Bill McPhee: Mr. Gordon reminded me of something when he mentioned Winthrop. I taught at Winthrop and I substitute sometimes now. We always think how things have changed, and they have. But one girl at the high school the other day, she said, "Mr. McPhee, are you married?" That kind of made me feel good, you know? She said, "Are you married?" I said, "Yes. I've been married for 44 years." And she said, "To the same woman?" And I thought, gee, that's an indication of the times. And then I remembered Winthrop because I had a class of seniors there. For math class, anyway. I was going through all these prefixes about bi and mono and uni and these different things and I said, "Now if a tricycle has three wheels and a biplane has two wings, and if you have two husbands it's called bigamy. What would having one husband be called. And a girl said, "Monotony." So, she had her prefixes right anyway!
Jon DeJong: I have just one other story that I want to share and I don't know why I keep coming back to these times when I got spanked, but that seems to be the thing that is most vivid in my memory. There were some people in this building who you did not want to hack you. They had reputations for having legendary swings. And when I went through school, probably two of the biggest knotheads in the school were myself--and mom was teaching here--and the other one happened to be Rusty Taylor, whose father was none other than Max Taylor, the principal. Rusty and I spent time together and very frequently were not a real positive influence on one another.
The hack story that I remember best was kind of a combination of adolescent pride and stupidity. There used to be an outdoor ed program. Jim Tarbert and Bob Pell team taught that. And they'd say when they were going to be out, "You need to be sure that you're not creating any problems in my absence with a sub." So they were gone and our lack of common sense got the best of Rusty and me and we messed around and gave the sub a hard time. When we came back to school the next day Jim Tarbert and Bob Pell took us into the classroom. Bob was one of the most feared hackers in the land. They brought us in and they told us what we did was wrong. They didn't raise their voices. They were very calm. And then they said, "You know, you're going to get a hack for this. But we're going to give you the opportunity to choose." Of course, we both knew good and well who we didn't want us to hack us, and that was Bob Pell. But we also knew good and well that we didn't want Bob Pell to know that. So consequently, we said, "You know, it doesn't matter to us. You decide." And you know who hacked us. It was Bob Pell and he lit us up. And I remember going down to basketball practice and showing the guys they could read Converse backwards across my backside. And that was compliments of Bob Pell.
The other thing, though, that I want to share with you is that I've got pretty deep roots here. And one of the things that you folks probably are not aware of, and really need to know, is the foundation that was laid by the staff members who started in this building. Things have changed considerably. And one of the things that has changed is that there's a lot more turnover in the teaching ranks. It used to be, when I grew up anyway, those teachers were there year after year after year. And Pioneer had a reputation of being rather strict and rather traditional. I came back as a teacher and there were still some of you who were teaching here and there were some teachers who had come on afterwards. That tradition that was started by you folks at the very beginning was carried on. And it was an interesting thing, because as a new staff member would come on you would be indoctrinated into the Pioneer ways. And the Pioneer way that carried through was setting high expectations for student behavior. A lot of stories have been told over the years about kids in assemblies in those times when kids tend to be the most active and disruptive. And those traditions carry on to this day. This building was opened in '57, I believe, and we're in '97, forty years later, and yet, down through the years those kinds of traditions about the expectations that are set for kids continue to be carried on by staff members.
When I became principal here our office letterhead said "The old school with the new spirit." Having Pioneer blood in my veins, when I came in we changed that. Now on our letterhead says "Pioneer Middle School--the tradition continues."
Faye DeJong: When Jon first called me and told me that he had the job as principal here, I said, "Well, you certainly know what the inside of the office looks like, so you won't have any surprises there!"
I've been thinking about some things that we did when we taught here that would sort of be unheard of now, but remember Project Pioneer? I can't even remember what it was about, but one thing I do remember was that we had those Friday afternoons where we had activities. I remember I took a bunch of kids up Saddlerock. Yes! And I took a bunch of kids canoeing at Three Lakes. Now I'd be so scared of being sued that I wouldn't dare do that. All it would take was one to run ahead and fall off the rock or something. But we did a lot of those things and didn't think too much of it. And it was fun.
The talk about hacking reminds me--remember Dick Comstock? He had a terrible temper. I had room 306 and Jim Turner and Dick Comstock were at the end of the hall. I was talking to the kids once about something and we heard something. So I said, "Well, wait a minute, I'll go out and see what it is." I came out of my door, and Dick was just giving some kid fair-thee-well, and it scared me so I came right back in the room and the kids said, "What happened?" I said, "Don't ask!"
One of the things that I remember, and I don't know if it's still true because I haven't been to an assembly, but I remember our kids were very well behaved in assemblies. I was always proud of them. I remember speakers would come, sometimes on those Veterans Day assemblies, the speakers would be about as old as we are now. And the kids would respect them and they would stand and tell stories and our kids were always really good. I don't know, are they still good?
Dan Wilson: They still are.
Faye DeJong: There was a story that once somebody didn't show up for and assembly and Dan [Wile] stood up in front and those kids sat there quiet for what, thirty minutes or so?
John Beard: He was a speaker about Mt. Everest and he was about fifteen minutes late, and Dan went out there in front of the assembly and stood. You could have heard a pin drop.
Faye DeJong: I think I was the first woman teacher ever to hack somebody. I finally kind of went over the edge with one boy and told him to bend over. And then I hacked one other boy and after I hacked him he laughed. He said, "Well, that didn't even hurt." So I gave that one up. I didn't do that any more. That was too hard on my pride.
One thing I wanted to share was sometimes, you know, we stand up there and we teach all of our rules and our content and everything, and I was really reminded how the little things that we do sometimes make so much more difference. For instance, I went Christmas caroling last year and one of the young women said, "Oh, I remember you. We couldn't comb our hair in class 'cause it stuck to your slacks all the time." I said, "Is that all you remember?" And she said, "Well, no I don't think so, but I do remember that!" One day a young man came to our door just to say hello. I hadn't seen him in years and years. And he said to me,"You have no idea what a difference it made when you wrote in my annual in the ninth grade." Now that's scary because you know the end of the year when you're writing in people's annuals you are not putting profound things in there. Because you don't have time. But I had written something about believing in yourself and you'll go far. And that stuck with him. I don't know why, and he came at age, probably 26, 27 to tell me how much that had meant to him. And I think it's food for thought for younger teachers to realize sometimes the little things that we say to kids, a little encouragement here or there, makes a big difference.
Dennis Rae: Faye mentioned Dick out in the hall with a student. Once I came around the corner by the office, heading down the 200 wing, and there was Pershing Beglau out in the hall with some little kid. He had that little German finger in his face, "Young man!" I think he was the author of Chewing Out 101. I turned around and went back, clear around the building.
The other thing I want to mention was the kind of student we had in those days. They were sure a different crew. We had a whole bunch of guys who would call us up on Saturdays or Sunday afternoon. They'd go through every faculty member till they'd find one that would come open up the gym and let them come down and play ball. They were quite a different, dedicated bunch of kids.
And I was also going to say in those years that John, Big Red, and I coached I don't think we had a loosing season, did we? That was always fun and at the end of the season we'd always meet together and have pizza and tell stories. Lot of fun.
Dave Groche: You probably remember the green stuff that was planted along the gym, all those bushes and stuff in there and the kids used to have it hollowed out so they'd go in there and smoke. And I had a student teacher one time and these kids came down, "There's someone out there in the bushes, smoking!" So I got that old water bucket we used to have for the football team and I filled it with water and I took the student teacher and I said, "Come up here." We went out there and here the smoke was coming up out of the bushes and I hollered, "Fire! Fire!" and threw that bucket of water and almost drowned him!
Faye DeJong: You say that we had a different kind of student, but one year, I had a class of eighteen in my last period class and they have subsequently, many of them, ended up in the penitentiary. I have never had a class like that! I just said to Max, "How can you do this to me?" And so what I did, I promised them that if they would work for 40 minutes, the last 10 minutes we would arm wrestle. And that's honestly how I kept them in line the whole year. We would spend the last ten minutes arm wrestling. And I once beat one of them, and after that then they respected me a little bit more. These guys were big and they were mean! Max came in once to observe and he said to me, "You've got those kids eating out of your hand. What do you do?" And I said, "We arm wrestle."
Larry Offutt: I don't know how many of you remember the purpose in building that huge gymnasium out here when they put up Pioneer. But it had to do with the Apple Blossom Festival. And they needed a large area to put on that celebration. So they built that huge gym and then they had a partition on the back that opens up on the Apple Bowl, so if they had good weather they could have it outside. Of course the Apple Blossom Festival was the big deal. You couldn't get near this place on parade day. I think we all remember that the Youth Parade we used to have on Fridays and all the Pioneer faculty staff were expected to be down here and keep track of the kids and walk down to the parade route. We got a half a day off after that was over with. We thought that was a great thing. Now they've moved it to a separate day and the schools aren't all that tied up with it. But I used to have to ride down here on a bicycle because I couldn't get within ten blocks of this place on that Saturday morning or the Friday morning before the Youth Parade. And it was a great experience to see those kids, the elementary schools, and the junior highs, the bands, the marchers. And they'd put on the costumes and their uniforms and it was a great deal for the Apple Blossom parade and had all the schools in Wenatchee tied up with that and they really got a big bang out of it.
Faye DeJong: One thing I wanted to say, Dan, not only am I impressed with those of our students who do well after graduation, but there are so many that when we had them, you'd just think, "What is ever going to happen to these kids?" And I see them around town and they're doing well and they have nice families. They come up and say, "How could you ever stand me?" I say, "I didn't have any choice." I think that's heartening and we ought to get that message across to young teachers that you have them at a very difficult time in their lives and they're not particularly charming, many of them, but they, so many of them turn out to be such good people. And maybe they're not stars, but they raise their families, they go to work every day, and they do what has to be done. And that's what keeps the world turning.
Pat Christiansen: You know, I think back who was on the faculty at Pioneer and we had some wonderful people. And they were all so different! And I think that's what really made us click and get along together. And we had fun together, and we shared and we helped each other.
Gene Gnagy: We remember those burrs under our saddle, but there are so many kids, and we mentioned those, the good students, those who are doctors now, and this is the thing that makes me feel really glad that I was an educator and a part of all this.
Pat Christiansen: I had the cheerleaders back in '58 and '59. And they could not wear skirts and when they jumped up in the air they could not spread their legs. But the kids did real well. You know "you've come a long ways", we've come a long ways. And I think it's for the best.
Bill McPhee: When I look back now at H.B. Ellison and Pioneer, of course, Wenatchee itself was a different town, and the schools felt like more a part of the community. But Pioneer wasn't just a school. Pioneer was part of Wenatchee, and I think that's the difference.
Faye DeJong: I think the parents trusted us to know, that we knew what were doing. And now every time you make a move somebody thinks that they know more about educating than the educators.
Gene Gnagy: Over the 45 years that I taught, parents had trust in you. When I started teaching, I was the parent in absentia for the kids from the time they left home until they got here and then back home again. So I had that responsibility and I could discipline. And you guys can't do that. But, you'll come out on top. It'll wash out all right in another 30 years.
Jon DeJong: We gotta wait that long?!
Pat Hilscher: I started my teaching career here at Pioneer, it's been right now 30 years. A lot of people ask me, "How can you be at one school?" And you know I just look at them and I say, "The kids, number one, and the staff." I look around here and I think of the tradition, the love that you gave to me of this school, and for kids. You're always positive. You're always a positive influence, and, yes, I'm at Pioneer because Mr. Wile hired me, but I'm at Pioneer because when Coy told me about the PE job opening he said, "Don't believe all those stories about junior high kids." Because I said, "Junior high kids. Are you crazy? I want the high school." And I have not ever wanted to go up to the high school since then.
Back with keys. I started with a key story. I want to end with a key story. Bonita taught seventh period PE and that was my prep period. I had the last period kind of free so I could relax and kind of get ready for coaching and she came in really upset. She'd put her clipboard down on the ground in the Apple Bowl and her keys on top of the clipboard. And a stopwatch. I think she was more crushed about the stopwatch, because it was my track stopwatch, and in those days one stopwatch was all you got. She put her things down and our maintenance man was mowing the lawn. He mowed right over it and pieces of stopwatch flew all over. And Bonita, they still do not get off their mower to move around things!
Listed below are the teachers who attended the disucssion of Pioneer traditions in December, 1997 and the years they taught at Pioneer:
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John Beard Bob Butcher Pat Christiansen Faye DeJong Jon DeJong Gene Gnagy Dave Groche Chuck Hayes |
Pat Hilscher Sandy O'Donnell Bonita Offutt Larry Offutt Dennis Rae Walt Shoftstoll Mrs. Wile, wife of Dan Wile, first principal of Pioneer Dan Wilson
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