I’ve already run pictures of a wild side of Miss Helen Ketterer that most of [...]]]>

One of the most valuable lessons I learned at Central High School was that it’s a good idea to be on the good side of the administrative staff. Those are the folks who have custody of your permanent record.

I’ve already run pictures of a wild side of Miss Helen Ketterer that most of us didn’t know existed.

Mrs Helen Moore retired in 1984

I didn’t have as many dealings with Mrs. Helen Moore. I searched the Google News Archives and found a few stories about her.

 June 2, 1982 – She and other administrative, cafeteria and maintenance employees with more than 20 years of service honored. Mrs. Moore had served 24 years at that time.

June 13, 1984 – A story noted that Mrs. Moore, who was retiring, was recognized by the Mis-Sco-Deau Association of Educational Office Personnel.

April 17, 1985 – Two photos titled “Leisurely luncheon” and “Together again. One caption said, “A leisurely luncheon at Holiday Inn is a far cry from pulling lunchroom duty at the schools, as a number of career teachers who have retired from Central High School will tell you. Go here to see photos of Mary Carter, Mary Evelyn Lane, Betty Folsom, Cornelia Gockel, Mary O. Damitz, Vivian Kies, Lucille Adams, Alene Sadler, Norma Sander and Inez Smith in one shot.

Grace Williams, Alta Muegge, Dorothy Quarles Garner, Irene Wright, Carrie Finley Bolen, Katheryn Wulfers, Helen Moore, Ellen Towse, Laura Rixman and Martha Welman Dahringer are in the second. It’s amazing how much the women look the same as they did in the mid-60s (except more relaxed).

Administrative staffs get it done

I put my Central experiences to good use when I became a telecommunication manager. I bought the staff an espresso machine that was complicated enough to operate that it came with a training video. Terry was the designated operator who took his assignment serious enough that he’d pull out a thermometer to make sure everything was at the right temperature and he’d pre-chill the pitcher the milk was in.

A couple of times a week, we’d invite two or three folks from other departments to come up for coffee and gossip at the end of the day. Sometimes the group would include a department head or manager, but mostly it was admin assistants, office managers and supervisors.

To be invited was kind of special because you had to have an electronic swipe card to get into the telephone switch room, then you went through another set of doors to our combination storage room / break area. Only a handful of people in the company had access to it, so it was like being in the inner sanctum. We might have a call center supervisor from circulation, a guy from the AC/Electric department and someone from the newsroom, plus my staff. We’d trade office gossip and talk about stuff that was coming up. A lot of problems got solved and others headed off in those informal groupings.

It was a great way for departments who would normally never mix to get to know each other and open up lines of communication. And, trust me, these were the folks who REALLY got the stuff done; it’s not the department heads. I can say that because I WAS a department head.

So, academics aside, I learned something from the Central High School office staff that was more important than a lot of the dull facts I memorized in the classroom.

The Class [...]]]>

An invitation from assistant principal Wayne Goddard to join his Social Club – detention – was something no Central Student wanted. He played the bad cop to Principal Fred Wilferth’s good cop, although, truth be told, I never heard anybody speak ill of him.

Coach, Navy vet, All-American

The Class of 1965′s reunion booklet had a page in the back that read, “Not one student that attended Central while he was there as assistant principal, did not live in fear of ‘Big G.’ However, anyone who dealt with him on a one-to-one basis knew Mr. Goddard to be fair, without malice and always looking out for the students’ welfare and moral character.”

I guess I should have surmised from that that Big G must have moved his Social Club on to another plane, but it didn’t register. When I did a search of The Missourian’s archives, I was surprised to see that he had died Sept. 22, 1984, at the age of 70. He always seemed like one of those guys who would be around forever.

He was born June 9, 1914, in Anna, Ill. He graduated from SEMO in 1939, where he earned All-American honors in football in 1937 and participated in track. He was a Navy veteran, having served during World War II and the Korean War. Mr. Goddard was head football coach at SEMO from 1947 to 1951. The SEMO State University Goddard Football Award for the best offensive lineman is named each year in his honor.

His obit said he married Martha Male on Dec. 3, 1939. Survivors at the time included his wife, one son, Hal W. Goddard, Jackson; two daughters, Mrs. Helen Harris, St. Louis, and Mrs. Kathy Barry, Advance; two brothers, Craig Goddard, Chicago, Ill., and Byrl Goddard, Carbondale, Ill.; and two grandsons.

Wayne Goddard news stories

There were scores of clips about Mr. Goddard, but most of them were routine sports wraps. Here are some that rose above the average. I particularly like the first one. I can just hear him growling that comment.

• Oct. 13, 1947 – When the State College Indians dropped their opening game against the Warrensburg Mules in 1947, “Coach Goddard’s curt comment on the game was to the effect that the Indians displayed about the poorest exhibition of blocking and tackling he had ever witnessed. He said the Mules’ line outplayed his line from start to finish. He intimated that he may start at least eight freshmen against the Kirksville College Bulldogs. ‘If I can’t get football out of the older boys, I might as well start building for the next season,’ he said.”
• Oct. 27, 1947 – Mrs. Wayne Goddard and son, Hal Wayne, 2000 Thilenius Street, were dismissed from Southeast Missouri Hospital. The child was born Oct. 17.
• Feb. 6, 1952 – Lt. Wayne Goddard, due to report for active Navy duty and assignment to Guam next month, announced today his resignation as coach of State College and his retirement from the coaching field. “I want to thank every football fan and Southeast Missouri State College for the cooperation and support of the team during my work at the college. I’m truly sorry that I’ve been unable to win more regularly than 41 per cent of my games, but the thoughtful consideration given me has made the work more enjoyable than the record indicates. I hope the new coach will never lose.”
• Apr. 14, 1958 – 12 Records Fall as Cape State Beats Team from Arkansas: In the high jump, John Lorberg of Cape and Stegal of Jonesboro tied for first with a leap of 6 feet 1-1/8 inches, which broke the record of 6 feet 1-inch held by Wayne Goddard of Cape, since 1936.
• Feb. 20, 1962 – Wayne Goddard, assistant principal at Central High School, said students heard the space shot [John Glenn's flight] over radio. No, he didn’t want to be the next astronaut to the moon. “I’ve gone to sea too many times and got sick too many times.”
• Apr. 27, 1962 – Hook, Line and Sinker column: Wayne Goddard and his son, Hal, had a trotline out on the Brockmeyer pond north of Cape. Their single catch was a whopper, a 14-pound cat that stretched 29 inches.

Barbara Nunnelly Adler posed a question in her comments on my story about high school clubs and activities: BTW does any know what ever happened to Mr. Dan Moore who taught Spanish and also sponsored Spanish Club. I would love to be in touch with him to let him know what a big [...]]]>

Barbara Nunnelly Adler posed a question in her comments on my story about high school clubs and activities: BTW does any know what ever happened to Mr. Dan Moore who taught Spanish and also sponsored Spanish Club. I would love to be in touch with him to let him know what a big influence Spanish has been in my life. . . now with a son working and living in Spain!

I can’t help you with where he is today. I Googled his name and saw some links that MIGHT have been him, but I couldn’t be sure.

Which language should I take in high school?

I thought about Latin, but figured the odds were slim that I’d ever run into any Romans. France didn’t seem to be in my future, either. “I might actually go to Mexico,” I thought, “I’ll sign up for Spanish.”

It never dawned on me that I wouldn’t need to GO to Mexico. It and Cuba and much of Central and South America came to me. We moved to South Florida where Wife Lila and I are frequently one of only two English-speaking families in our immediate neighborhood. I wish I had studied a little harder at Central.

I remember the language lab pictured above. You’d sit in a tiny cubicle with a headphone and mouthpiece listening to questions or dialog that you were supposed to respond to. The instructor would sit in front of the classroom listening to each student in turn. I learned early on that there was always a “click” in the headphones when Senor Moore switched to me, so that’s when I’d start talking into the mike.

Are you an American citizen?

Senor Moore spent one of his summer breaks living with a family in Mexico so he could become fluent in Spanish. When it came time to come back home, he was in the back seat asleep when they came to the border crossing. He awoke to hear a Border Patrol officer ask, “Are you an American citizen?” His response, “Si”

Starring in Scarface

I had my own version of total immersion Spanish class. I spent a day short of a month in Key West covering the Cuban Boatlift in 1980. I was surprised to see myself in the opening credits of the movie Scarface (I’m the one with a camera and a Cat hat). I knew enough Spanish to be able to say that I was from a newspaper, to ask their name and ages and to ask if any kids present were their children. As long as I stuck to nouns and verbs (and darned few of them), I was OK.

A few years later, the paper offered in-house Spanish lessons. Once we got beyond nouns and verbs and into stuff I never understood when I was in English class, I bailed. I DID ask one last question, “How do I say, ‘Don’t shoot, please.’?”

I never needed to use it, which is probably a good thing. The instructor probably gave me a phrase that said something like, “Your mother is as ugly as a pig, but I’d kiss her anyway.”

Language teachers at Central High School

Here’s a photo from the 1964 Girardot.

It identifies the teachers, left to right, as Charlotte Malahy (Latin and English); Mary E. Sivia (French), Dan Moore (Spanish) and Bessie Sheppard (French and English).

I ran photos of Miss Krueger’s retirement party in 1963 here. She taught Latin before it became a dead language. She was one of six teachers who were in my Dad’s 1931 yearbook and still at Central when we were there.

Back in the good old days, there was a ready supply of [...]]]>

I was going to do a bunch of research about Central High School chemistry teacher Tom O’Loughlin, better known to his students as “General O,” but I figured you folks could contribute better stories than I could dredge up.

Mercury and explosions

Back in the good old days, there was a ready supply of mercury in the chemistry room that you could play with. It was neat how it would form into tight little globules that you could chase around. A penny dipped in it immediately turned shiny silver like a new dime. If we were warned not to play with it, it was more so it wouldn’t be wasted than it was considered hazardous.

Today, mercury is banned from classrooms. Not too long ago, someone spilled a small quantity that had been overlooked; the school was evacuated and the guys in moon suits showed up to decontaminate the place.

Nothing ever exploded or caught in fire when I was in his class, but others were luckier.

General O supported his students

When Jim Stone decided to build a laser for the science fair, way back before you could buy them in every Staples store, Gen. O found money to help subsidize the construction. I’ve been bugging Jim for months to send me information about that project, but he keeps begging off. Maybe this will get him going.

Here they are picking up some contraption or another in St. Louis. All I remember is freezing on a hay bale in the back of Gen. O’s pickup to keep the thing from jostling around while Jim was up front where it was warm. I guess that’s a good indicator of who was the rocket scientist.

I didn’t know until Ernie Chiles told me that Gen. O had been a bomber pilot in World War II (maybe that’s why he was able to maintain his calm in the midst of classroom explosions and hijinks)  and a farmer who recruited students for hard labor.

He and Alene Sadler were the kind of teachers that students remember the rest of their lives.

OK, folks, let the stories roll.

When the Class of 1965 filled out the bio information for the 20th reunion in 1985, 18 students listed Miss Alene Sadler as their most influential teacher.

She was one of the toughest and best teachers I had. Miss Sadler was not one to trifle with lightly. After she marked one [...]]]>

When the Class of 1965 filled out the bio information for the 20th reunion in 1985, 18 students listed Miss Alene Sadler as their most influential teacher.

She was one of the toughest and best teachers I had. Miss Sadler was not one to trifle with lightly. After she marked one of my answers wrong on a test, I brought in  a stack of books the next day to prove my point. She conceded that I was correct, but I had a clear sense that I may have won the battle, but the war was going to be distinctly unpleasant.

Missouri Teacher of the Year

I did a Missourian search, but couldn’t find an obit or any current information on Miss Sadler. There were lots of stories going back to 1925 about her musical performances, but little about her teaching. She WAS named Missouri Teacher of the Year in 1964. Looks like we were fortunate enough to catch her in her prime.

Comments from the Class of 65

Charlie Baldwin: She was an excellent instructor who demonstrated the ability to teach subject matter in a very interesting fashion while at the same time developing positive relations with students. She has been a very good role model for me during my career.

Vicky Berry Dereign: The teachers who influenced me were Miss Sadler and Miss Sivia, they set a standard for me after which I have tried to pattern my own teaching. (Humorous memories: “I remember how Kenny Steinhoff used to argue about everything, including the pros and cons of kissing.”) [Editor's note: I have no idea what she's talking about.]

Lee Dahringer: …for developing an appreciation of and an interest in effective communication and analytical thought.

Put my brain to work

Peggy Estes Goddard: She was creative and caused me to really put my brain to work.

Connie Hall Schwab: Her efforts helped me to realize that proper English and grammar are essential in every aspect of one’s life.

Marsha Harris Vangilder: Taught me to read – just for pleasure.

Alice Lynn Snell: The skills that she stressed have had a lasting effect and have helped much in my career.

Love of students

Marsha Marshall Gutshall: Her love of the students and her strong desire to impart knowledge.

Connie Nelson Copsy: She treated us as adults and prepared us for college, while still getting the information across.

Mary Ponder Wyss: I still recall and utilize many of the things learned in her class.

Victoria Roth Hardy: Most influenced by Miss Sadler’s exposure to the Humanities and the Arts. [Vicky] had fond memories of Miss Sadler’s harp player.

Michael Seabaugh: … for her being able to open up the world in all its glorious depth and breadth.

Ken Steinhoff: She tried to teach me how to express myself clearly on paper.

When I ran the photo of Coach Jane Womack and two girls in Central High School PE uniforms, I said I didn’t know who the girls were and asked for help identifying them.

The electrons had barely enough time to go squirting down the Internet pipes before [...]]]>

When I ran the photo of Coach Jane Womack and two girls in Central High School PE uniforms, I said I didn’t know who the girls were and asked for help identifying them.

The electrons had barely enough time to go squirting down the Internet pipes before the answer started coming back.

I was right about Coach Womak, said Libby Koch, who had her for PE and Government.

Bill East said the girls were Rosanne Hecht (center) and Joni Tickel.

I made the mistake of questioning his judgment by saying, “I’ll concede that MIGHT be Rosanne, but I don’t recall Joni ever having Big Hair.

Almost immediately he fired back, “Check out 1964 Girardot, p. 106, bottom, and p. 107, top.

Bill East must have the doggone Girardot memorized

Joni looks more Frizzy than Big Hair in this homeroom picture, but her hair color looks close to the PE photo. It certainly moves her into the realm of possibility, particularly when Sally Bierbaum Dirks chimed in to support Bill.

Patti fisher Caid, who was a Notre Dame student and shouldn’t have a dog in this hunt, posted, “There you go Ken, two against one! The odds are not looking good.”

By the time Jane Neumeyer and Sheila Hopkins Phillips weighed in on Bill’s side, I gave up.

Here’s Page 107 of The Girardot showing Roseanne Hecht

I ran the bottom of the page because it has a picture of Bill and Terry Hopkins on it. Both of them are frequent contributors to this site, so you might want to know what they looked like. OK, and the Barringer Twins are in the picture, too. That, of course didn’t influence my decision to run the picture.

Bill’s easy to pick out. He has the same expression in the picture I shot of the Teen Age Club dance that was moved to a bank parking lot. He’s in the right center of the first picture at this link.

Joni Tickel and Bill Withers as Royalty

I checked my 1965 Girardot and Wife Lila’s 1966 yearbook without seeing this picture, so I don’t know what the event was. Since she’s wearing short sleeves, I’m thinking it may have been a spring event that happened too late to make the yearbook. Ideas, anyone? Bill?

When I visited with Ernie last year, he mentioned that we should gear up to ride the Katy Trail, the longest Rails to Trails in the country. It’s 225 miles long, running from St. Charles in the east to Clinton [...]]]>

Ernie Chiles,  Looking No Worse for Wear after His Bike Ride

When I visited with Ernie last year, he mentioned that we should gear up to ride the Katy Trail, the longest Rails to Trails in the country. It’s 225 miles long, running from St. Charles in the east to Clinton in the west.

It’s been something on my to-do list for several years, but my mileage for the year was way down (about 700 miles) and he confessed that he hadn’t even hit three digits. A 225-mile ride didn’t sound like a good idea, particularly since the weather had turned wet and cold.

Horseshoe Lake was a compromise

I had seen some maps for this weekend’s Tour de Shawnee that showed an easy, flat ride around Horseshoe Lake near Olive Branch, IL, and some more challenging hilly routes north of there.

I decided that the Horseshoe Lake ride would be scenic, with light traffic and leave us with the option of extending the ride if we wanted to.

It was a good choice. When we got back to the starting point, we debated going on, but decided that we’d rather quit wanting more than to add another 20 hard miles to the ride and wishing we had bailed early.

If you’re a bike geek, you might want to read THIS version, which includes a map.

If you don’t know who Ernie Chiles is, go to yesterday’s post.