| Cruisin' the Past |
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| Cruisin’ the Past by Ed Dooley |
Preface for Some of Us
Although this column will focus mainly on our experiences at Catalina High School in the
years 1957 to 1960, to begin this project I feel a need to say a few words about an
experience many of us had some years earlier in 6th grade at Blenman School in 1953-
54. This school was and is still located about a mile west of CHS on Pima Road. Not
everyone from the CHS class of 1960 attended Blenman School, of course, but I suspect
that the number of us who did is large, and therefore may justify this slight detour (see a
partial list at the end of this essay).
Sixth grade in Blenman School, the grade I entered in the fall of 1953, was the "senior"
class of the school. The next higher grade was offered at Doolen Junior High School, a
reputedly very tough school several blocks north where reports of a stabbing having been
committed the previous year still circulated through the neighborhood (The Air Force
transferred my family to Savannah, Georgia, before I could attend Doolen). Blenman was
just the opposite of Doolen: it was an immensely enjoyable and supportive place, much
like Sam Hughes School that I attended in 1949-50. It also resembled Sam Hughes School
in that it was a one story building laid out as a hollow square around a pleasantly
landscaped inner courtyard. The building was not new – it opened the year I was born,
1942 -- but the classrooms were newly furnished and they had that unmistakable mark of
modernity: greenboards. Our teachers at Blenman (with an exception or two) truly seemed
to love teaching children. They were thorough, caring, enthusiastic, and inspiring, and
they made learning enjoyable.
The most remarkable teacher I had at Blenman -- in fact, the most outstanding teacher I
ever had anywhere before entering the University of Arizona as a freshman -- was Mr.
John F. Newcomer, my sixth grade homeroom, English, and social studies teacher. He was
a native of Arkansas, and although he and his wife had lived in Tucson for some years,
he retained a noticeable Southern accent. I can only guess what his philosophy of
education was from his actions, as he never articulated it to us, but it was something like
this: treat each child as if he or she were his own child; help children master their
academic lessons and find joy in learning; stretch young minds; and promote moral
uprightness and physical wellness. Children did everything possible to have him as their
homeroom teacher as he was so respected and loved. Dave Berg and I were among the
fortunate: we were assigned to his class. Hallelujah!
A book could be written on Mr. Newcomer's teaching methods, and I regret that this has
never been done. Some examples will have to do. He had a kind of hillbilly sense of humor
that kept us all smiling or laughing, even when the going was tough. That persona
masked the determination of a master teacher to keep all of his students moving forward
with confidence and optimism. He encouraged our interest in history while building our
public speaking skills by having us give oral reports in front of the class.
Mr. Newcomer wanted us to be aware of serious events taking place in the world beyond
our little desert community. One of those events in 1954 was the siege of Dien Bien Phu
in Vietnam. At his direction, all of us became reporters and were given assignments to
read the newspaper, listen to the radio, and watch television for news about the siege. Mr.
Newcomer drew a detailed map of Dien Bien Phu on one of the greenboards, and we
updated it carefully each day from news reports. As the end for the French defenders
approached, we crowded around the map to add details as we knew them and we
speculated on what might happen and if anyone would go to the rescue. When the
French were finally overrun and defeated we were devastated and spent several class
sessions talking about what we had learned. To suggest that this had been a mere
academic study of current events would be to vastly underrate this memorable experience.
Mr. Newcomer also taught civics, but in a manner that I had never seen before and have
never seen since. Instead of having us simply read about government, law, and
economics in our textbooks and then test us afterwards, he created a town right there in
our classroom and let us learn our civics lessons through first-hand experience as well as
reading. The town had the name that the class voted on -- we called it "Newcomerville," in
honor of its founder -- and each student decided the role that he or she wished to play in
the town: doctor, lawyer, policeman, merchant, and so on. I chose to be the owner of a
department store. Mr. Newcomer used the mimeograph machine to produce currency of
various denominations, and each student received a certain amount of this money at the
start of the exercise. It was a little like the game of “Monopoly,” but instead of being
propelled by the roll of dice, our game was propelled by the decisions of individuals and
by getting and spending among the participants. We elected a mayor, we appointed a
banker, we decided on taxes and fines: in short, we performed nearly all the functions of a
real town right there in our classroom.
This little town exercise was an annual feature of Mr. Newcomer's class, and it was so well
known among the students of Blenman that it was one of the reasons so many rising fifth
graders sought to enroll in his section. The game was great fun, educational, and a grand
success, but I learned years later that other teachers didn't approve of this unorthodox
method of teaching civics, so the game was eventually brought to an inglorious end. So,
for that matter, was our little version of the town. We were so excited about it and so
rambunctious in class that complaints were sent to the principal by other teachers and Mr.
Newcomer had to shut down our town and take up the mimeographed money. You'll never
find "Newcomerville" on any map of Arizona, but it's there: in the memories of his admiring
and grateful students.
The end of the school day did not mark the end of Mr. Newcomer's inspired work with his
students. He organized an after-school athletic program that was well-known in Tucson.
He took a rag-tag group of boys and formed them into athletic teams. By appealing to
businesses in the area, he raised money to purchase different colored jerseys that he
gave to all members of the teams. Each team had its own color, and each team had the
name of the sponsoring business emblazoned on the front of its jerseys. I was on the
"blue" team sponsored by "Kittle's Bike Shop." Another team was sponsored by Blakely's
gas station on Speedway, where during the "gas wars" a few years later the cost of
gasoline dropped to fifteen cents a gallon.
The teams played the major sports, depending on the season -- football, basketball,
baseball -- and we had tournaments and championship competitions. And we were
allowed to wear our jerseys around school and home, which built pride in "our team." The
difference between Mr. Newcomer's program and the "Little League" sports programs
elsewhere was that everyone played who went out for his teams; no one was left sitting on
the bench.
As if all this service to his students were not enough, Mr. Newcomer organized periodic
weekend camping trips to an old Boy Scout camp in the Santa Catalina Mountains. The
camp had a number of rustic cabins which, much to our surprise one night, we found to be
inhabited by hundreds of packrats and which were surrounded one morning by a herd of
brahma bulls, the leader of which seemed intent on entering one of our huts. There was
also a spacious dining room/meeting hall combination with a great stone fireplace. Most of
the time that we were in camp we organized ourselves into little platoons of raiders and
defenders and played capture the flag, our favorite game. Building team spirit seemed to
be part of every one of Mr. Newcomer’s programs. We also helped Mr. and Mrs.
Newcomer with the cooking and cleaning. After supper we'd build a fire in the fireplace
and Mr. Newcomer would tell stories from the Ozark Mountains. We'd also hold up a white
bed sheet a few feet in front of the fire and put on skits behind it so that the light from the
fire cast our shadows onto the sheet like silhouettes on a screen. My favorite skit involved
a simulated medical operation for the removal of all sorts of preposterous things from the
patient, punctuated by the sound of exploding balloons. On Sunday morning, we held a
brief religious service in the lodge before breakfast. When the weekend was over, no one
wanted to leave and no one wanted to go home.
One day Mr. Newcomer came to class carrying a large package. We gathered around him
excitedly as he opened it to reveal a kit for building a model oil field, complete with derrick,
boring tackle, outbuildings, cars, trucks, and people. The class cast a vote to decide who
would assemble the kit, and a friend and I were chosen because of our proven model-
building abilities -- I had brought in a number of my model planes for "show and tell." We
set to work immediately. The derrick, or tower, was assembled from small sticks of balsa
wood and was about 18 inches tall. It was placed at the edge of a box so we could show
the underground drilling operation and the geological layers that contained the oil. Once
we had completed the project, which took several weeks, other students gave reports on
oil drilling, geology, and other related subjects, and the model remained on display for the
entire school year.
Mr. Newcomer was truly a remarkable teacher, a teacher who not only taught us but had a
lasting positive influence on our lives. But years I was told that he had left teaching
because of criticism from other teachers and the school administration for his unorthodox
teaching methods and grading policies. I don't know if the rumors were true, but when I
was an undergraduate at the University of Arizona I met him again briefly in Tucson and
he was selling life insurance.
Mr. Newcomer was not my only teacher at Blenman School, but he is the only one I recall
by name. I also had a stimulating science teacher, a woman, whose class was nearly as
popular as Mr. Newcomer's. In her class that year we studied all sorts of plants, animals,
minerals, and the weather. We built a weather station from a kit and took and recorded
daily readings of temperature, wind, and barometric pressure. Of course there was
precious little rain and no snow to measure. We also studied desert creatures and we
even had a large, very hairy, dark brown tarantula that we kept in a glass case.
One day we arrived at our science class to find that the tarantula was not in his case; he
was gone! He -- or was it a she? -- had escaped. We evacuated the room in a hurry and
stayed away for two days as nervous teachers and janitors, brooms at the ready,
searched everywhere, but the tarantula was not to be found. So we returned to our
classroom and continued our studies, but every move thereafter was executed with great
caution. We were especially careful whenever we raised the top of our desks to retrieve
items stored in them. The boys naturally had fun teasing the girls, and there were many
jokes and pranks that very nearly got us sent to detention, but we could be brave
because we were convinced that the creature had made a dash for the desert and was
probably half-way to Mexico by then. We were wrong! About a week after the critter had
made its escape, it was spotted hiding in the classroom, and it had been lurking there all
that time. (Shrieks from the girls; expression of disbelief from the boys.) Everyone -
including the spider, I suspect --breathed easier once the tarantula was back in its glass
case, and just to make sure that he would stay there we placed a brick over the cover.
Nor do I remember the name of my arithmetic teacher. (Actually, I do, but I won’t mention it
here.) She was an elderly woman who seemed angry most of the time. We dreaded her
class. She was the old-fashioned, stern, impatient, what-has-our-country-come-to type of
arithmetic teacher who carried a wooden ruler around with her and would slam it down on
a student's desk if he or she didn't have the correct answer to a problem. This behavior
didn’t help my attitude toward math at all. Around the room she would prowl, weapon at
the ready. "That's not how you do that problem, young man!" she would exclaim. WHAM!
would go the ruler on the desk. "Have you been doing your homework? "Yes ma'am."
WHAM! "You must pay more attention to your work!" And then she would go on to the next
child. Whenever the entire class was especially dense on some point, she would order us
to put our heads on our desks, and woe to anyone who moved or looked up! We were
always very glad to leave her class, and we talked about setting our adventurous
tarantula loose in her classroom -- or maybe even a snake! -- but, of course, we never
did. If there had been any hope for me with math, this experience ended it forever. I don't
think I learned anything in that subject that year, and my attitude toward arithmetic, it need
scarcely be said, only became worse.
In addition to our academic classes and all the enjoyable activities organized by Mr.
Newcomer, a number of us were also members of the junior safety patrol at Blenman
School. It was a big honor to be a safety patrol, and we wore the white Sam Brown belt
and badge that indicated our status with considerable pride. Providing traffic control and
security at crosswalks was not the only responsibility of the ever-vigilant safety patrol. We
were also assigned the duty of preventing the smuggling of contraband, in the form of
chewing gum and candy, onto the playground or into the school. This was an especially
difficult assignment for us because there was a candy store on the corner directly across
from the school, and dozens of children could be seen entering and leaving it before they
came to school. Because of the fatal run-away auto accident that I witnessed at Peter E.
Howell in 1951, all Tucson schools had high chain link fences around them, so children
coming to school had to pass through one or two gates. Members of the safety patrol
were posted at these gates to confiscate the contraband. Of course we failed miserably at
our task because our classmates found a million places to hide candy. The favorite place
was in tubular bike handlebars, which were capped with removable handle grips. In those
innocent days, to my knowledge, chewing gum and candy was the only contraband that
any kid ever dared bring to school.
As I said, the Blenman School “alumni” made up only one element of the CHS Class of
1960. Here is the list of members of Mr. Newcomer’s homeroom class, with CHS graduates
in boldface (some names may be misspelled) : Susan Angel, Ann Baksa, John Bedell,
David Berg, John Bergan, Lois Brooks, Larry Bryson, Melvin Croonenberghs, Artis
Curd, Ed Dooley, Bob Edmington, Ralph Elmer, Dan Fitchett, Kay Harris, James Klein,
Lesley Laws, Steve Ledbetter, Norma Lester, Val Jean Lucken, Charon Malanga, Bill
Mandell, Clare Marx, David Newell, Steve Patzman, Lewis Slagle, Deborah Turner,
Joyce Wood.
For those of you who did not attend Blenman, I would like very much to hear from you.
Please tell me what elementary school you attended in Tucson, or elsewhere, and if there
were any teachers, like Mr. Newcomer, who had a strong influence on you. And for those
who did attend Blenman but were not in Mr. Newcomer’s homeroom, please email me any
memories you may have of that extraordinary school and its teachers. I would really enjoy
any feedback or added information you may want to send me.
(Explanatory note: I lived in Tucson three times: 1948-1950, 1953-1954, 1958-1964,
which will explain why my recollections tend to jump a bit.)
Although this column will focus mainly on our experiences at Catalina High School in the
years 1957 to 1960, to begin this project I feel a need to say a few words about an
experience many of us had some years earlier in 6th grade at Blenman School in 1953-
54. This school was and is still located about a mile west of CHS on Pima Road. Not
everyone from the CHS class of 1960 attended Blenman School, of course, but I suspect
that the number of us who did is large, and therefore may justify this slight detour (see a
partial list at the end of this essay).
Sixth grade in Blenman School, the grade I entered in the fall of 1953, was the "senior"
class of the school. The next higher grade was offered at Doolen Junior High School, a
reputedly very tough school several blocks north where reports of a stabbing having been
committed the previous year still circulated through the neighborhood (The Air Force
transferred my family to Savannah, Georgia, before I could attend Doolen). Blenman was
just the opposite of Doolen: it was an immensely enjoyable and supportive place, much
like Sam Hughes School that I attended in 1949-50. It also resembled Sam Hughes School
in that it was a one story building laid out as a hollow square around a pleasantly
landscaped inner courtyard. The building was not new – it opened the year I was born,
1942 -- but the classrooms were newly furnished and they had that unmistakable mark of
modernity: greenboards. Our teachers at Blenman (with an exception or two) truly seemed
to love teaching children. They were thorough, caring, enthusiastic, and inspiring, and
they made learning enjoyable.
- First Row (l-r): Ann Baksa, Joyce Wood, Kay Harris, Louis Brooks, Val Jean
Lucken, Charon Malanga, Norma Lester, Deborah Turner, Susan Angel, Clare Marx.
Second Row (l-r) James Klein, Ed Dooley, Dan Fitchett, Ralph Elmer, Steve
Patzman
Back Row (l-r) Mr. Newcomer, Artist Curd, Steve Ledbetter, Lesley Laws, Larry
Bryson, John Bergan, David Berg, Bill Mandell, Lewis Slagle, Melvin
Croonenberghs, Bob Edminston, David Newell, John Bedell.
The most remarkable teacher I had at Blenman -- in fact, the most outstanding teacher I
ever had anywhere before entering the University of Arizona as a freshman -- was Mr.
John F. Newcomer, my sixth grade homeroom, English, and social studies teacher. He was
a native of Arkansas, and although he and his wife had lived in Tucson for some years,
he retained a noticeable Southern accent. I can only guess what his philosophy of
education was from his actions, as he never articulated it to us, but it was something like
this: treat each child as if he or she were his own child; help children master their
academic lessons and find joy in learning; stretch young minds; and promote moral
uprightness and physical wellness. Children did everything possible to have him as their
homeroom teacher as he was so respected and loved. Dave Berg and I were among the
fortunate: we were assigned to his class. Hallelujah!
A book could be written on Mr. Newcomer's teaching methods, and I regret that this has
never been done. Some examples will have to do. He had a kind of hillbilly sense of humor
that kept us all smiling or laughing, even when the going was tough. That persona
masked the determination of a master teacher to keep all of his students moving forward
with confidence and optimism. He encouraged our interest in history while building our
public speaking skills by having us give oral reports in front of the class.
Mr. Newcomer wanted us to be aware of serious events taking place in the world beyond
our little desert community. One of those events in 1954 was the siege of Dien Bien Phu
in Vietnam. At his direction, all of us became reporters and were given assignments to
read the newspaper, listen to the radio, and watch television for news about the siege. Mr.
Newcomer drew a detailed map of Dien Bien Phu on one of the greenboards, and we
updated it carefully each day from news reports. As the end for the French defenders
approached, we crowded around the map to add details as we knew them and we
speculated on what might happen and if anyone would go to the rescue. When the
French were finally overrun and defeated we were devastated and spent several class
sessions talking about what we had learned. To suggest that this had been a mere
academic study of current events would be to vastly underrate this memorable experience.
Mr. Newcomer also taught civics, but in a manner that I had never seen before and have
never seen since. Instead of having us simply read about government, law, and
economics in our textbooks and then test us afterwards, he created a town right there in
our classroom and let us learn our civics lessons through first-hand experience as well as
reading. The town had the name that the class voted on -- we called it "Newcomerville," in
honor of its founder -- and each student decided the role that he or she wished to play in
the town: doctor, lawyer, policeman, merchant, and so on. I chose to be the owner of a
department store. Mr. Newcomer used the mimeograph machine to produce currency of
various denominations, and each student received a certain amount of this money at the
start of the exercise. It was a little like the game of “Monopoly,” but instead of being
propelled by the roll of dice, our game was propelled by the decisions of individuals and
by getting and spending among the participants. We elected a mayor, we appointed a
banker, we decided on taxes and fines: in short, we performed nearly all the functions of a
real town right there in our classroom.
This little town exercise was an annual feature of Mr. Newcomer's class, and it was so well
known among the students of Blenman that it was one of the reasons so many rising fifth
graders sought to enroll in his section. The game was great fun, educational, and a grand
success, but I learned years later that other teachers didn't approve of this unorthodox
method of teaching civics, so the game was eventually brought to an inglorious end. So,
for that matter, was our little version of the town. We were so excited about it and so
rambunctious in class that complaints were sent to the principal by other teachers and Mr.
Newcomer had to shut down our town and take up the mimeographed money. You'll never
find "Newcomerville" on any map of Arizona, but it's there: in the memories of his admiring
and grateful students.
The end of the school day did not mark the end of Mr. Newcomer's inspired work with his
students. He organized an after-school athletic program that was well-known in Tucson.
He took a rag-tag group of boys and formed them into athletic teams. By appealing to
businesses in the area, he raised money to purchase different colored jerseys that he
gave to all members of the teams. Each team had its own color, and each team had the
name of the sponsoring business emblazoned on the front of its jerseys. I was on the
"blue" team sponsored by "Kittle's Bike Shop." Another team was sponsored by Blakely's
gas station on Speedway, where during the "gas wars" a few years later the cost of
gasoline dropped to fifteen cents a gallon.
The teams played the major sports, depending on the season -- football, basketball,
baseball -- and we had tournaments and championship competitions. And we were
allowed to wear our jerseys around school and home, which built pride in "our team." The
difference between Mr. Newcomer's program and the "Little League" sports programs
elsewhere was that everyone played who went out for his teams; no one was left sitting on
the bench.
As if all this service to his students were not enough, Mr. Newcomer organized periodic
weekend camping trips to an old Boy Scout camp in the Santa Catalina Mountains. The
camp had a number of rustic cabins which, much to our surprise one night, we found to be
inhabited by hundreds of packrats and which were surrounded one morning by a herd of
brahma bulls, the leader of which seemed intent on entering one of our huts. There was
also a spacious dining room/meeting hall combination with a great stone fireplace. Most of
the time that we were in camp we organized ourselves into little platoons of raiders and
defenders and played capture the flag, our favorite game. Building team spirit seemed to
be part of every one of Mr. Newcomer’s programs. We also helped Mr. and Mrs.
Newcomer with the cooking and cleaning. After supper we'd build a fire in the fireplace
and Mr. Newcomer would tell stories from the Ozark Mountains. We'd also hold up a white
bed sheet a few feet in front of the fire and put on skits behind it so that the light from the
fire cast our shadows onto the sheet like silhouettes on a screen. My favorite skit involved
a simulated medical operation for the removal of all sorts of preposterous things from the
patient, punctuated by the sound of exploding balloons. On Sunday morning, we held a
brief religious service in the lodge before breakfast. When the weekend was over, no one
wanted to leave and no one wanted to go home.
One day Mr. Newcomer came to class carrying a large package. We gathered around him
excitedly as he opened it to reveal a kit for building a model oil field, complete with derrick,
boring tackle, outbuildings, cars, trucks, and people. The class cast a vote to decide who
would assemble the kit, and a friend and I were chosen because of our proven model-
building abilities -- I had brought in a number of my model planes for "show and tell." We
set to work immediately. The derrick, or tower, was assembled from small sticks of balsa
wood and was about 18 inches tall. It was placed at the edge of a box so we could show
the underground drilling operation and the geological layers that contained the oil. Once
we had completed the project, which took several weeks, other students gave reports on
oil drilling, geology, and other related subjects, and the model remained on display for the
entire school year.
Mr. Newcomer was truly a remarkable teacher, a teacher who not only taught us but had a
lasting positive influence on our lives. But years I was told that he had left teaching
because of criticism from other teachers and the school administration for his unorthodox
teaching methods and grading policies. I don't know if the rumors were true, but when I
was an undergraduate at the University of Arizona I met him again briefly in Tucson and
he was selling life insurance.
Mr. Newcomer was not my only teacher at Blenman School, but he is the only one I recall
by name. I also had a stimulating science teacher, a woman, whose class was nearly as
popular as Mr. Newcomer's. In her class that year we studied all sorts of plants, animals,
minerals, and the weather. We built a weather station from a kit and took and recorded
daily readings of temperature, wind, and barometric pressure. Of course there was
precious little rain and no snow to measure. We also studied desert creatures and we
even had a large, very hairy, dark brown tarantula that we kept in a glass case.
One day we arrived at our science class to find that the tarantula was not in his case; he
was gone! He -- or was it a she? -- had escaped. We evacuated the room in a hurry and
stayed away for two days as nervous teachers and janitors, brooms at the ready,
searched everywhere, but the tarantula was not to be found. So we returned to our
classroom and continued our studies, but every move thereafter was executed with great
caution. We were especially careful whenever we raised the top of our desks to retrieve
items stored in them. The boys naturally had fun teasing the girls, and there were many
jokes and pranks that very nearly got us sent to detention, but we could be brave
because we were convinced that the creature had made a dash for the desert and was
probably half-way to Mexico by then. We were wrong! About a week after the critter had
made its escape, it was spotted hiding in the classroom, and it had been lurking there all
that time. (Shrieks from the girls; expression of disbelief from the boys.) Everyone -
including the spider, I suspect --breathed easier once the tarantula was back in its glass
case, and just to make sure that he would stay there we placed a brick over the cover.
Nor do I remember the name of my arithmetic teacher. (Actually, I do, but I won’t mention it
here.) She was an elderly woman who seemed angry most of the time. We dreaded her
class. She was the old-fashioned, stern, impatient, what-has-our-country-come-to type of
arithmetic teacher who carried a wooden ruler around with her and would slam it down on
a student's desk if he or she didn't have the correct answer to a problem. This behavior
didn’t help my attitude toward math at all. Around the room she would prowl, weapon at
the ready. "That's not how you do that problem, young man!" she would exclaim. WHAM!
would go the ruler on the desk. "Have you been doing your homework? "Yes ma'am."
WHAM! "You must pay more attention to your work!" And then she would go on to the next
child. Whenever the entire class was especially dense on some point, she would order us
to put our heads on our desks, and woe to anyone who moved or looked up! We were
always very glad to leave her class, and we talked about setting our adventurous
tarantula loose in her classroom -- or maybe even a snake! -- but, of course, we never
did. If there had been any hope for me with math, this experience ended it forever. I don't
think I learned anything in that subject that year, and my attitude toward arithmetic, it need
scarcely be said, only became worse.
In addition to our academic classes and all the enjoyable activities organized by Mr.
Newcomer, a number of us were also members of the junior safety patrol at Blenman
School. It was a big honor to be a safety patrol, and we wore the white Sam Brown belt
and badge that indicated our status with considerable pride. Providing traffic control and
security at crosswalks was not the only responsibility of the ever-vigilant safety patrol. We
were also assigned the duty of preventing the smuggling of contraband, in the form of
chewing gum and candy, onto the playground or into the school. This was an especially
difficult assignment for us because there was a candy store on the corner directly across
from the school, and dozens of children could be seen entering and leaving it before they
came to school. Because of the fatal run-away auto accident that I witnessed at Peter E.
Howell in 1951, all Tucson schools had high chain link fences around them, so children
coming to school had to pass through one or two gates. Members of the safety patrol
were posted at these gates to confiscate the contraband. Of course we failed miserably at
our task because our classmates found a million places to hide candy. The favorite place
was in tubular bike handlebars, which were capped with removable handle grips. In those
innocent days, to my knowledge, chewing gum and candy was the only contraband that
any kid ever dared bring to school.
As I said, the Blenman School “alumni” made up only one element of the CHS Class of
1960. Here is the list of members of Mr. Newcomer’s homeroom class, with CHS graduates
in boldface (some names may be misspelled) : Susan Angel, Ann Baksa, John Bedell,
David Berg, John Bergan, Lois Brooks, Larry Bryson, Melvin Croonenberghs, Artis
Curd, Ed Dooley, Bob Edmington, Ralph Elmer, Dan Fitchett, Kay Harris, James Klein,
Lesley Laws, Steve Ledbetter, Norma Lester, Val Jean Lucken, Charon Malanga, Bill
Mandell, Clare Marx, David Newell, Steve Patzman, Lewis Slagle, Deborah Turner,
Joyce Wood.
For those of you who did not attend Blenman, I would like very much to hear from you.
Please tell me what elementary school you attended in Tucson, or elsewhere, and if there
were any teachers, like Mr. Newcomer, who had a strong influence on you. And for those
who did attend Blenman but were not in Mr. Newcomer’s homeroom, please email me any
memories you may have of that extraordinary school and its teachers. I would really enjoy
any feedback or added information you may want to send me.
(Explanatory note: I lived in Tucson three times: 1948-1950, 1953-1954, 1958-1964,
which will explain why my recollections tend to jump a bit.)
