In 1949, Porter was the American Legion Player of the Year and in 1950, his senior year at Tech, he was the California State Baseball Player of the Year. He played six seasons in the major leagues as an infielder, outfielder and catcher with the St. Louis Browns, Detroit Tigers, and others. He later became a minor-league manager for the Montreal Expos organization. While at Tech, he was senior class president.

Jeanette Brock and Julia Fahmie have been friends since Claremont Junior High School. They had a great time at Tech in the late 1940s. This was the Big Band era where everyone danced the Jitterbug and the Swing. For the boys having a car was a mark of prestige. Not all the boys had a car, so it was common to double date with someone who did. Most guys had at least a motor scooter to get around. The girlfriends would ride on the back of the scooter (no helmets)! A big thrill was to ride motor scooters through the old tunnel which exists above the current Caldecott Tunnel. One hang out spot was “the Flats” in the Berkeley Hills where couples would go to park with a view of San Francisco. Other favorite outings were drives to Orinda to eat apple pie at the drive-in, Walnut Creek for ice cream at the Creamery, and the Moraga Barn. They remember their parents always reminding the girls to take ten cents with them on dates in case they needed to call for a ride home (pay phones)! They would wear penny loafers with 10 cents tucked inside.

The hot spot at Tech for lunch was a restaurant across Broadway. They would go with about twenty of their girlfriends every day to hang out and were known as the “Backroom Belles.” Brock and Fahmie were best friends then– and now– with two other women, Jackie Lange and Joyce Perata. Together they were known as the “4J’s” at Tech. They all married local men. Jeanette married Bill McClean (Tech, 1947), now deceased. Julia married Dale Dryer (Berkeley High, owner of Hank’s and Frank’s Bike Stores), now deceased. Joyce married Dave McCaulou (Tech), her high school sweetheart, of McCaulou’s Department Stores. They have traveled, celebrated life, and shared losses together for over 60 years. Sadly, there are now only three left as Jackie passed away a couple of years ago. The most important life lessons they learned while at Tech were influenced by World War II, including the importance of loyalty and friendship.

Jeanette Brock and Julia Fahmie have been friends since Claremont Junior High School. They had a great time at Tech in the late 1940s. This was the Big Band era where everyone danced the Jitterbug and the Swing. For the boys having a car was a mark of prestige. Not all the boys had a car, so it was common to double date with someone who did. Most guys had at least a motor scooter to get around. The girlfriends would ride on the back of the scooter (no helmets)! A big thrill was to ride motor scooters through the old tunnel which exists above the current Caldecott Tunnel. One hang out spot was “the Flats” in the Berkeley Hills where couples would go to park with a view of San Francisco. Other favorite outings were drives to Orinda to eat apple pie at the drive-in, Walnut Creek for ice cream at the Creamery, and the Moraga Barn. They remember their parents always reminding the girls to take ten cents with them on dates in case they needed to call for a ride home (pay phones)! They would wear penny loafers with 10 cents tucked inside.

The hot spot at Tech for lunch was a restaurant across Broadway. They would go with about twenty of their girlfriends every day to hang out and were known as the “Backroom Belles.” Brock and Fahmie were best friends then– and now– with two other women, Jackie Lange and Joyce Perata. Together they were known as the “4J’s” at Tech. They all married local men. Jeanette married Bill McClean (Tech, 1947), now deceased. Julia married Dale Dryer (Berkeley High, owner of Hank’s and Frank’s Bike Stores), now deceased. Joyce married Dave McCaulou (Tech), her high school sweetheart, of McCaulou’s Department Stores. They have traveled, celebrated life, and shared losses together for over 60 years. Sadly, there are now only three left as Jackie passed away a couple of years ago. The most important life lessons they learned while at Tech were influenced by World War II, including the importance of loyalty and friendship.

From January to June 1950, I was editor of the Scribe, which was put out by the students in the journalism class taught by Miss Jessie Smith. That was the best class I ever had! It has served me my whole life. The ability to write and to help others understand things is what I really developed as editor of the paper. I became a professor in the Education Department at Cal and have written 84 books and hundreds of articles and in all of that, I have used the skills I developed in that class. The whole team of kids that I worked with was great. In fact, we still meet every two months.

We covered primarily school events. As the Editor, I had a regular column which I called “Here’s the Dope.” I also did cartoons for the paper, especially sports cartoons, and other humor stuff. Once, Walt Disney invited me to be a reviewer for its new movie “Cinderella.” That was exciting!

About 6 of us from the Journalism class went to the print shop in downtown Oakland every Friday to put the “slugs” of type in the “sticks” to get the paper set up. We were taught how to use the “Linotype” machine including how to put in spaces, how to place pieces to attract the eye, how to make corrections. The people in the print shop taught us all that. We basically missed school every Friday. By senior year, we had taken all that we needed for college so we didn’t miss that much. It was more flexible in 1950! It was just great.

I particularly remember one article in the Scribe. My girlfriend at the time, Peggy Donovan, and I won the Dads’ Club Talent Show. There were “Dads’ Clubs” at every school which sponsored various events. The Talent Show was really well organized. The various high schools would compete against each other in different categories like solo, duets, bands, etc. and the winners would go on to a statewide competition. My girlfriend and I both play accordions and our performance of Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody won for the entire Bay Area and then for the whole state! Someone from a =San Francisco television station saw us, thought we were colorful in our lederhosen, and put us on the first colored television broadcast in the country which was beamed out of San Francisco. I have the photos of that. They couldn’t record it on film, but we have the soundtrack for it. At that time, the cameras were stationary. When we were practicing our number, the station manager said, “We can’t use the kids. Every time they hit the keys, they burn our tubes.” The reflection apparently caught the light in a certain way and the result was the light tubes burned out! The prop man got the brilliant idea of powdering our accordions with face power, so every time we pushed the bellows, there was a little puff of powder. It was very funny. I was in 12th grade. Peggy went on to become a professor of music at Sonoma State University and I became a professor of Science Education at UC Berkeley.

The post-war years, when I was in high school, were a peaceful era. The war was behind us and the world was changing. GI houses were going up to house the returning soldiers and their new families. There was a big boom of new kids in the schools. It was a great time in the country and at Oakland Tech. The classes were wonderful. The teachers were great. Society felt really good. We weren’t a divided country. There was a good feeling in those years compared to now when the country feels pretty fragmented.

A lot of blacks had come up from the South to work in Oakland shipyards during the war and they after the war and established themselves in the Bay Area. There was a fair amount of diversity at Tech when I was there and it seemed like no one really cared about different groups being different. Kids were on different tracks though. It was mostly white kids in college prep. A lot of the black kids from the South hadn’t gotten the educational preparation that we had enjoyed and that played out in high school. I think a lot of them took the shop and business classes, but in terms of mixing together, we did somewhat. It really was an interesting time. I think the teachers were mostly white.

I remember Clint Eastwood was always in the auto shop. I knew him a little. He loved music and since I played the accordion, we talked a little about music. He played with local bands at night. He really was already out in the adult world. He wasn’t a big heartthrob then. He was pretty much a loner. He didn’t come to school events, but he wrote an autobiography and there is a section in it on Tech.

As far as other teachers, I remember my geometry teacher, Mr. Max Yulich. I loved him. He could stand with his back to the blackboard, facing us, and draw a perfect circle on it every time. Just perfect!

We always had lunch on the front lawn. Every group had it own place it would go to. We weren’t allowed to leave campus. Later on, they could get a hot dog across the street. There was a cafeteria, but my friends and I always brought bag lunches.

Those were happy times!

[With the Lawrence Hall of Science, Larry Lowery developed a nationally popular hands-on science curriculum called FOSS (Full Option Science System) and two acclaimed math programs- FAMILY MATH and EQUALS. In addition, he is the nation’s foremost expert on “Big Little Books” (small, compact books designed with a captioned illustration opposite each page of text) that were published from the 1930s to the 1960s, were extremely popular among young readers, and are today collectible.]

Growing up, I lived near Mosswood Park, so Tech was my neighborhood school. It wasn’t the safest area at the time but as long as you didn’t draw attention to yourself, it was fine. I wasn’t terrified to be at Tech but I was careful. It was such a big school to get around. I started out as college prep but I wasn’t motivated and didn’t care about going to college, nor was I encouraged to go. I did end up going several years later and became a teacher.

At Tech, I just wasn’t motivated for classes, other than Art. I didn’t play sports at Tech because my family was too poor to buy the uniform. We just didn’t have money for that. But I am proud to say that I didn’t need that, I survived in spite of not having any of those things.

Nowadays when I drive by the school, it looks like a university. I take great pride in the school and am proud of my grandson, Semo, who goes there. I love when I pick up my grandson at school, I see kids of all different races and backgrounds walking together. I love the diversity at Tech and it gives me hope that we can all learn to get along together.

When I registered my son, I ran into Coach Sherman who I used to run around Lake Merritt with but I hadn’t seen him for 40 years. I still run in Oakland, mostly in the hills.

My advice to Tech students today is that this is your ticket to ride. Try to get good grades and learn the skills you’ll need to make it in the world. The payoff for your hard work is later one. Even for me, as a “non-student,” I’m proud I got my high school degree.

E. James “Jim” Lieberman, Class of 1951, was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1934. His father was a physician, and Lieberman recalls that, “in 1942, just after Pearl Harbor, he decided to join the Army Medical Corps though he was over-age: he wanted to help in the fight against Hitler.” Ironically, he was assigned to the Oakland Army Hospital, on the Pacific front.

After the war, the family returned to Milwaukee for a year–with a record-setting snowfall. Retired Major Ben Lieberman accepted an offer to join a clinic in Oakland, where Jim attended Oakland Technical High School, which he remembers fondly. “They had a good college prep program and an excellent music department. Having started cello in fourth grade (his mother, Ruth, was a good violinist) he played in orchestra and chamber music groups. He took up flute in order to play in the band. His love of music continues; he still plays quartets and trios, and partcipates in music outreach to assisted living communities.

Lieberman attended UC Berkeley for his undergraduate degree, a nice three mile bike ride from home. Though Berkeley was “in turmoil with politics,” including a controversial loyalty oath, it was still “a great place to go.” He was on the Cal wrestling team and played piccolo in the marching band. After finishing pre-med requirements he entered UCSF Medical School (M.D., 1958). Times were different: of 82 classmates, only 3 were women.

After internship at the U.S. Public Health Service Hospital, Staten Island, Lieberman spent three years as a psychiatry resident at Mass. Mental Health Center, followed by a year at the Harvard School of Public Health ( M.P.H., 1963), where he developed an interest in “family planning as preventive psychiatry.”

In 1963, Lieberman came to Bethesda to work on the Community Mental Health program at NIMH initiated by President Kennedy. His first publication was “Family Planning and Mental Health” in J. Marr. & Family. Later he co-authored Sex and Birth Control: A Guide for the Young, (and long after, in 1998, with his daughter, Like It Is: A Teen Sex Guide.). In 1970 he started private practice while working part-time at the American Public Health Association, editing Mental Health: The Public Health Challenge (1975). He served on several boards, including the the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the US (SIECUS), The American Assn. of Marriage and Family Therapy, and Compassion and Choices.

Lieberman came to George Washington University School of Medicine in 1976 where he became Clinical Professor in 1988; he supervised psychiatry residents and taught some introductory psychiatry classes for medical students. He particularly enjoyed supervising cases in couples and family therapy, sometimes with live interviews.

I graduated from Tech in 1951 and remember two very different things. The first one concerns a member of the faculty. In my senior year my Spanish teacher, Miss Ellis, refused to sign the Loyalty Oath and was put on leave because of it. We had substitutes to fill out the rest of the term until I graduated in June of 1951. Whether Miss Ellis was ever reinstated I don’t know. I do know that her picture was not published in our yearbook, along with all the other teachers, because of this event.

She taught Spanish, and yes it was a shock to the students when we heard she would no longer be teaching at Tech. The students did not support her decision not to sign the Loyalty Oath–in fact the rumor going around school was that Miss Ellis was a member of the Communist Party!! None of this was based on fact, to my knowledge, but the students felt Miss Ellis was being a traitor to America and certainly unpatriotic. I, and I’m sure others that knew Miss Ellis, would love to know what was really behind the incident¬ was she really unpatriotic or did she feel she was being coerced into something she didn’t believe in. To my knowledge, Miss Ellis was the only teacher who refused to sign the oath that year.

Miss Ellis, Marguerite Ellis, was unmarried, wore rimless glasses, was about 50ish with gray hair she pulled back and often secured with a large black bow (about 4″ x 6″!)!! Sometimes it was a black ribbon, but always in black (years before the “scrunchie” came into fashion). She never wore any color, always a white blouse and a black skirt¬ very uniform-like. She informed the class she was Catholic, so maybe her outfits were a throwback from her Catholic school uniforms, though we didn’t know for sure she attended Catholic school.

Miss Ellis’ picture is in the 1950 yearbook and you can see from her picture there is a big black bow showing at the side of her head. Mostly I remember she was a very no nonsense teacher and we were not allowed to speak any English in senior Spanish; all instructions, questions, comments, etc. had to be in Spanish. It was a pain at the time, but it did help when I got to U.C. Berkeley and took Italian because so many of the words were similar. That is about all I remember about Miss Ellis; I really do wish we knew more about her personal life as I’m sure she was a much more interesting person than she was able to show in front of her classes.

[In 1950 the Levering Act became law in California, mandating a loyalty oath for employees of the state of California. The only California state senator voting against the bill was George Miller of Contra Costa County. It wasn’t until 1967 that the Levering Act was declared unconstitutional by the California Supreme Court.]

The other thing I remember was that we had a Sadie Hawkins dance each year and the girls were allowed to ask a boy, which was a big deal in the 40s and 50s; it took all of our courage to even think of such an aggressive thing, let alone act on it. I did ask a boy (he accepted), and the girls had to make a corsage out of vegetables, of all things, for their date to wear. I made mine out of carrots and broccoli which was pinned to my date’s lapel–it weighed so much it practically pulled his jacket down to his mid-section, so most of the evening was spent holding up his corsage while trying to dance. Before the evening was over, the dance floor looked like a decaying vegetable garden¬ bits and pieces of many of the boys’ corsages everywhere. I’m sure there is no longer a Sadie Hawkins dance at Tech, let alone vegetable corsages. Kids now are much too sophisticated for that now!!??

Background on the “Loyalty Oath:”
From the California Federation of Teachers website, an article entitled “1950’s: The Teachers Union that Came in From the Cold War:”

If the early 50s proved anything, it’s that the creation, preservation and extension of civil liberties of every generation have to be defended and won all over again by the next one. Heir to the Palmer Raids and Dies Committee witch hunts, McCarthyism scarred far more than teachers and their unions before it was through. For teachers in California, it defined the very atmosphere of the times, attempting and often succeeding in making any action out of the ordinary seem opposed to ‘freedom’, ‘democracy’ and ‘the American way of Life’.

The issue was not merely philosophical. Many federal and state laws were passed making new or continued employment contingent upon the signing of loyalty oaths; others made current or past membership in the Communist Party sufficient cause for dismissal. Congressional committees were set up to implement the new laws. The most famous, of course, was the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), and the person most directly identified with the anti-Communist crusade, Joe McCarthy. The witch hunts associated with these people and institutions bred their local counterparts, and they didn’t stop with persecuting Communists.

It was the view of San Francisco Superintendent of Public Schools Herbert Clish that teachers “…are afraid to discuss controversial issues in the classrooms. They are afraid of community pressures.” A generation of children were denied teachers able to openly discuss and stand up for their ideas.

From fewer than a thousand teachers in 1950 the CSFT membership had more than doubled by the mid-50s.

From AL Times, March 7, 2006: “Loyalty Oath Roils Academic Waters”: At the height of the anti-communist scare, more than half of UCLA’s faculty protested the signing of a so-called loyalty oath that the University of California Board of Regents was requiring of all employees, regardless of tenure. Most faculty members later gave in to the pressure, swearing that they were not members of the Communist Party or any group that advocated overthrowing the government by force or violence. Thirty-one professors refused.

May 2, 2008 by The Los Angeles Times: The loyalty oath was added to the state Constitution by voters in 1952 to root out communists in public jobs. UC Berkeley was the first to impose a tough anti-communist loyalty oath in 1949 and fired 31 professors who refused to sign.

After a version of the oath was added to the state Constitution, courts eventually struck down its harshest elements but let stand the requirement of defending the constitutions

The oath:

“I, ____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California against all enemies, foreign and
domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which I am about to enter.

“And I do further swear (or affirm) that I do not advocate, nor am I a member of any party or organization, political or otherwise, that now advocates the overthrow of the Government of the United States or of the State of California by force or violence or other unlawful means; that within the five years immediately preceding the taking of this oath (or affirmation) I have not been a member of any party or organization, political or otherwise, that advocated the overthrow of the Government of the United States or of the State of California by force or violence or other unlawful means except as follows:

_________________________________________________________________
(If no affiliations, write in the words “No Exceptions”)

and that during such time as I am a member or employee of the

______________________________________________________ I will not
(name of public agency)

advocate nor become a member of any party or organization, political or otherwise, that advocates the overthrow of the Government of the United States or of the State of California by
force or violence or other unlawful means.”

Darryl Cole, widow of J. C. Cole, Class of 1951, donated his yearbooks to Tech and shared these observations and memories. J.C. was very active in his years at Tech, serving as Traffic Commissioner (head of the patrols that made sure students didn’t run in the halls and went up the “Up” staircases and down the “Down” staircases), playing on the varsity baseball and football teams, participating in the Hi-Y Club, helping plan the senior ball, and singing in the graduation chorus.

The inscriptions of his classmates attest to his popularity: the boys comment on his sports prowess and the girls on his good looks and pleasant demeanor. Darryl says that he always talked of his Tech years with fondness. He told her that the “ball field” just dirt with a lot of broken glass in it! After graduation, he attended Santa Rosa Junior College and played on its football team, but received a brain concussion and was forced to quit playing. He ended up leaving school to help take care of his mom, who was dying of colon cancer.

Unfortunately, after she passed away, he received a notice from everyone’s FAVORITE UNCLE and ended up in Korea. He was unable to go back to school. He was not very good at keeping in touch with high school friends. They attended Darryl’s 30th high school reunion from Punahou in Honolulu, and ended going to Maui every year after that as long as he was able. He loved Hawaii. J. C. died in September of 2012.

Rod McKuen is an award winning poet, songwriter, composer and singer, and was one of the bestselling American poets during the 1960s. Born in Oakland, he ran away from an abusive home at age 11 and supported himself with odd jobs that included being a rodeo cowboy, a DJ, and a stuntman. He wrote his first poetry and song lyrics in a journal that he kept, and eventually became a newspaper columnist. Living in San Francisco and working alongside Beat poets like Alan Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, McKuen began performing folk music, then released pop albums in the late 1950s.

In 1959 McKuen left the Bay Area for New York City and eventually for France, where he began two decades of collaboration with Belgian singer-songwriter Jaques Brel, translating French pop songs into English. During the 1960s he also began to publish poetry, and his album of readings, Lonesome Cities, won a Grammy for Best Spoken Word Recording in 1968. His work as a composer for films earned recognition in the form of two Academy Award nominations, for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and A Boy Named Charlie Brown.

McKuen wrote over 1500 songs for performers from Barbra Streisand to Frank Sinatra to Dusty Springfield. He also wrote orchestral compositions, one of which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in Music, and performed in venues like Carnegie Hall. He retired from active performing in 1981 but continued to record occasionally, and to write poetry and prose from his home in southern California.

Rod McKuen passed away in January of 2015, in Beverly Hills, California.

The following is from Rod McKuen’s website, referencing the Honorary Diploma he received from Oakland Tech in the 1970s

OAKLAND TECHNICAL HIGH’S 50th REUNION

Greetings, Rod. Got your CD “Beatsville” at the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore last week. Coincidence! On May 12 I will go to Oakland for 50th reunion, class of ’51. I know you aren’t in that group, perhaps the year after? Anyway, I look back on those years warmly. Best wishes, Jim Lieberman

Dear Jim, A nice surprise hearing from you. I was in ‘the class of ’51, I just didn’t stick around long enough to graduate. But, if I can work it out I’ll be joining you and the rest of the fifty-oners for the big reunion.

Some years ago I went back to Oakland Tech and received an honorary diploma. I had told the faculty that as a way of saying thanks I’d give a performance at an assembly. Of course not having been in Oakland for more than 20 years I had no idea of how Oakland Tech. High had drastically changed since I was last in the city. The student body was now nearly 100% Black and (rightfully so) they didn’t have a clue as to who the hell Rod McKuen was. Never mind being receptive to a white guys songs and form of entertainment. But, a promise is a promise and I was there.

Without a doubt I was about to face the toughest audience of my life. What in the world could I possibly do to entertain thes pubescent youngsters with a culture worlds away from mine and who had probably only come to the assembly as a means of cutting class – that was always my motive for attending assembly when I was a student.

But I won ‘em. How? I turned the hour and a half into a question and answer period, where the Q. & A.’s had very little to do with me. We discussed everything from show biz to sex & along the way I sang a song or two and coaxed some of the more adventurous – and it turns out quite talented – students on stage to do their thing. It was an anxious moment, but I had a ball. In the end I got a standing ovation.

I too have some good memories of 1951 at Tech, though probably not as many as yours. I was somewhat of a misfit but enjoyed faking my way through school by pretending to be an extravert. I couldn’t complete the term because I had a living to earn and it was time for me to move on.

Looking forward to seeing you and Sandy and Jack and Bruce and all the rest. Warmly, Rod

I was born in San Francisco Chinatown Jan. 4, 1934. My family moved to Oakland when I was 10 years old to open a Momma/Poppa grocery store in West Oakland across the street from Hoover Jr. High School on West St. near 32nd Street. We lived at 28th and Chestnut Street in Oakland.

I thought it would be nice to meet more Asians as I usually was the only Asian in my elementary and junior high school classes, so I enrolled at Oakland Tech. I joined the Chinese Club. Most of the Chinese students grew up together and knew each other since they were in elementary school in Oakland Chinatown. I was a bit shy so it took me a while to fit in.

I loved sports since I was very young. At Hoover Jr. High all my friends were very athletic. As a matter of fact, we use to play basketball with Bill Russell who was in my class. He became famous playing for the Boston Celtics in the 1950’s and 60’s. In junior high us girls didn’t have any trouble keeping up with him. We never knew he was going to become such a great and famous player.

At Tech I could hardly wait to join the Girls’ Athletic Association’s after school program. I earned my Block T. The girl’s Block T consisted of all girls who had made 900 points in G.A.A. play (Girls Athletic Association) and were awarded a “letter” which was sewn onto our sweaters. G.A.A. was an after school sports program. I had a great time, met a lot of friends and enjoyed all the sport activities. Only thing was…. the Dean of Girls thought it was too unlady-like for us girls to be dribbling down the basketball court. So our gym instructors divided the basketball court into 3 sections and we had to stay in our own section and we were only allowed to dribble the ball twice! What a let-down after playing basketball at my junior high school.

I loved going to school at Tech High. Students were friendly and pretty well behaved back in those days. I remember being a Hall Monitor to keep students from running and if they went up or down the stairs in the wrong direction, I would give them a citation. That would mean they had to attend an after-school lecture. Wonder if that’s still being done?

The GAA girls volunteered to sell peanuts at all the football games. It helped to be able to throw bags of peanuts and catch their money!

My other love was singing in the Girls’ Glee and Chorus. Our music teachers were wonderful. From then on, I’ve been hooked on music. I find myself always humming or whistling to this day. The most exciting performance we had was singing the Hallelujah Chorus at the Oakland Auditorium with hundreds of other students from other high schools.

These were some of my favorite teachers because I felt that they were really interested in giving me their personal time and attention, which helped to boost my interest in learning:

• Marguerite Martin & Gladys Buchholz, Home Economics
• Helen Tomigal, Commercial
• Helen Vogel & Frances Carey, Girls’ Physical Ed
• John Mortarotti, Music Dept.

 

I still have contact with quite a few Tech Alums. As a matter of fact, I have a group of Tech High and Oakland High friends that enjoy getting together for a reunion every year.

Tech High was a turning point for me. Having a chance to join many of the clubs that were available to me gave me more confidence and poise which was much needed for me.

I am proud to be a Tech High Alumni. Whenever I have a chance to drive by Tech High, I slow down to look and admire the beautiful architecture of my old high school and remember all the fond memories of being a student there.

Can’t believe that it’s been over 65 years since I went to Tech! And now the school is going to celebrate its 100th anniversary. Time has flown by so fast. I hope the students that are attending Tech High today appreciate the chance of having the opportunity to learn and grow and excel and not take it for granted.

I’ll always remember Miss Ruth Forsyth, chemistry teacher at Oakland Tech. Miss Forsyth always wore a “grannie” dress and her glasses had very thick lens. When I was the object of her attention I could barely speak. I was transfixed with looking at her eyes that completely filled the lens of her large glasses. I, and other students said that all we could say to end any conversation with her and to get away from those huge eyes was, “Yes, Miss Forsyth.” I spent 40 years in the field of chemistry and I am sad to say that Miss Forsyth had no bearing on my eventual choice of chemistry as an occupation. The occupation chose me. My father, Antonio, also went to Oakland Tech in the 1920s. He wrote a term paper titled “Concrete,” for this same Miss Ruth Forsyth.

Mr. John Mortaratti was a music teacher and orchestra conductor at Oakland Tech. In the 10th grade I started to play in the second violin section of the orchestra. A year later, I had worked hard to be the 1st chair of the section. At the end of my junior year (June 1951), I was looking forward to being promoted to play in the first violin section. However, just before the semester ended, Mr. Mortaratti took me aside and told me that I was a “strong player” and that he wanted me to remain playing 1st chair second violin section during my senior year. I was devastated and extremely sad. I so wanted to play in the section that always played the melody of the music piece. He left the decision up to me. I ended my music career at Tech playing first chair second violin section in the orchestra.

Marian Trehan was a librarian in the Youth Library of the new Oakland Public Library on 14th Street. I and other Tech students went to her for assistance when we had to write a term paper for our history or English college-prep courses. Marian taught us how to mine the card catalog system to obtain the information we needed. She introduced us to other sources of information such as the UC Berkeley Dow Library and the US Government’s information pamphlets. She showed us where specific information books were located in the library on subjects as varied as medicine, literature, history, and famous and infamous people. If your term paper topic was California history, she got us permission to use the closed stack of books located in the California Room of the library. In some respects, research on my term paper topic became a joy rather than a chore. I considered Marian a valuable extension of the great teachers we had at Oakland Technical High School!

I found this vignette written 25 years ago in my journal:In September the teacher in the history (?) class I was in at Oakland Tech gave an assignment to write a term paper due in January. The topic of our paper was our choice. At the time I was selling newspapers, The Oakland Tribune and The Post Enquirer, at the corner of 40th Street and Broadway in front of Mullen’s Drugstore. After selling papers for my assigned time at the corner, after school from 3:30 to 6:30, I would go into the drugstore to pick out and read a comic book, the St. Louis Sporting News, the latest 10c sci-fi magazine, or any of the many crime/police magazines on display. At the time there were many stories on drugs and crime appearing in the crime magazines and in the local newspapers. After reading a story in one of these crime/police magazines, I decided that I had found my term paper topic. I would write about the drugs that appeared in the news stories: heroin, cocaine, morphine, and marijuana. I researched and wrote about the history of the drugs: where/how they were made, the effects on an individual taking the drugs, the uses of the drugs in legitimate medicine, and the illegal use of the drugs and their connection to crime. My sources were magazines, books in the Oakland and UC Berkeley libraries (thanks to Marian Trehan, librarian at the Oakland Library), and information from US government pamphlets about the subject. I even went to the Oakland Police Department to ask for any local information on drugs and crime that I could write about. A very skeptical police officer asked me for my name, address, school, and teacher’s name, and told me he would get in touch with me, which he never did.

I liberally illustrated my term paper with many pictures of crime scenes, police officers with individuals in custody, pictures of confiscated drugs and its attendant violence, cut from the crime magazines that I bought at the drugstore. I turned in my term paper and a week later the class was told what grade each of us had received for our effort. The teacher also announced that we could pick up our term paper after school. I went to the closet where the papers were placed and went through the stack. I did not find my term paper. I informed the teacher of my missing paper the next morning and he said that he would look to see if my paper had just been misplaced.

After a week of asking I got an unspoken disclosure from the teacher that I should just accept my grade “A” effort, and that the term paper would probably never be (found?) returned! I still have all of the term papers that I wrote in junior high school (Woodrow Wilson), and Oakland Tech. The one I really wanted to have, my first effort at Tech, is the one that for reasons unknown to me was never returned! Why? Looking back on this story today, I believe it was probably due to the political dogma and racial climate of that period of time in this country (1949-52). It was also a time when authority (police, teachers, politicians) was not questioned, especially by minorities!

After graduating from Tech, William Moore studied photography at Laney College, where he received a B.S. degree. He worked as a freelance photographer for several black-owned newspapers and magazines. In 1968 he was hired a TV cameraman for KTVU in Oakland, the first full-time African American news cameraman in commercial television in California. He also worked for the Associate Press as a freelance photographer and was later promoted to chief photographer at KTVU. The big stories he covered include the Loma Prieta earthquake, the Oakland Hills fire, and the murders of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. He retired from KTVU in 1996 and later taught digital video broadcasting at Ohlone College in Fremont.

I was the fourth generation of my family to live in Oakland. I was the president of the junior class. As head cheerleader, I was a student body officer. The atmosphere at Tech in the years I was there was very happy. People of all races got along with each other. We used to gather on the front lawn at lunchtime, and big groups would sit together eating lunch and enjoying friendships. I actually met my husband, who was in the class of 1950, at Tech. We’ve been married since 1955 and have had many interesting travels and experiences in our life together.

It’s amazing to think that the school is 100 years old. I hope the current students keep up the Tech Spirit that I remember.

Memories of sack-lunch at noontime on the front lawn of the school; of the 1951 football season, and the dramatic win that brought the league championship to our school!  Memories of serving on the Student Council my senior year, of sports rallies, of assemblies, of Senior Plays, of working on The Talisman. Memories of relationships with guy-buddies like Bill Walton, Gordon Wright and Sheldon Rothblatt, and girl-buddies like Peggy Woodward and Nancy Elliott. Memories of teachers who influenced me:  Miss Jessie Smith, who taught English, and whose trust enabled my role when I served as Editor of The Scribe in my Senior year; Miss Ruth Forsyth, who taught Chemistry, and cultivated my interest in the broad arena of earth and biological sciences; Al Kyte, Sr., who engendered a self-confidence in my own athletic abilities as a member of the basketball team.   Mr. Kyte, with Frank Johns, were men who shaped young men of capacity and accomplishment.  With those and other teachers, my gratitude turns to my mention of Helen Vockel, my counselor during my senior year.

Helen Vockel’s discerning and understanding assistance is unforgettably etched in my mind. As I discussed with her my plans beyond graduation, her manner tastefully and graciously expressed the feeling she and other faculty had concerning my tests and classroom work, especially reflecting the feelings of Mrs. Smith and Miss Forsyth. Their collective thoughts were, frankly, honoring and encouraging to me, as a young man who, in turn, respected these two teachers. The recommendations they had were that I apply to the University of California at Berkeley and pursue either journalism or science. However, I had come to that decisive counseling session with a sense of “calling” that would not necessarily be readily understood or could seem fanatical.

Nonetheless, Mrs. Vockel discerned a young man who was being drawn by a grace and power which, in fact, did indeed issue into a fruitful academic future in both college (Azusa Pacific) and seminary (LIFE College). As well, my years have been blessed with favor in my pursuit of ministering the truth of God’s love, wisdom of His Word and redemptive power through His Son, Jesus Christ. Today, as I “gather memories,” perhaps the greatest at Tech was one at the finality; when Mrs. Vockel confirmed my decision to pursue Christian ministry, rather than journalism or science. While the affirmation of the others was greatly valued, and their instruction and inspiration in the other fields contributed to my future, my time at Oakland Tech High concluded with Mrs. Vockel’s unforgettable sensitivity which I so greatly treasure to this day.

(NOTE: Hayford is a Pentecostal minister, founder and chancellor of The King’s University (a Pentecostal/Charismatic Bible college and seminary in Van Nuys, California), and founding and long-serving (1969-1999) pastor of The Church On The Way in Van Nuys, CA, one of the largest churches in the US with a membership of over 10,000. He is also a prolific author and songwriter with over 600 songs to his credit.)

(Written by Ron Curtis, Class of 1955, who is also blind)

William Schmidt, a student from the California School for the Blind, was on Tech’s wrestling team. He went on to SF State after missing going to the Olympics by one wrestling match. He taught in Temple City, California for several years, even teaching college level classes in the “new math” when it first came out. He became the first totally blind person to become a principal of a public school and then went on to become the first totally blind person in the nation to become the head of a school district in Bishop, California. Schmidt was another blind student to benefit from Tech’s wonderful and accepting educational system.

Al Kyte Jr., son of long-time Oakland Tech coach and Teacher Al Kyte, was the first baseball, basketball coach and physical education teacher at Skyline High. Became an instructor, administrator, coach, and bio-mechanics researcher at UC Berkeley from 1963 to 2000.

One of my fondest memories of Tech is being a member of the Swing Band, playing for assemblies and other outside performances. However, this experience was even more meaningful because I shared it with two of my life long friends: Clarence Walker, piano and base, and William “Bubba” Beal, baritone sax. Being a member of the trumpet section, I had the extreme good fortune to play with one of the great young trumpeters of the day, Mr. Mike Downs, who later became a professional. My years at Tech have always been meaningful and will continue to be so.

John Brodie’s athletic career started at Tech where he was All-Oakland Athletic League in three sports: basketball, baseball and football. He went on to become an All-American quarterback at Stanford University before starting for the San Francisco 49ers.

During his time with the 49ers, he was the N.F.L.’s Most Valuable Player in 1970, and at other times, led the N.F.L. in passing yardage, passing touchdowns, least sacks and lowest percentage of passes intercepted. He is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame.
He later had a second career as a professional golfer the Senior PGA Tour.

John Lawrence is currently a professor, natural scientist, and author. After graduating Tech, he attended UC Berkeley and earned a B.A. in Zoology in 1957 and a PhD in Entomology in 1965. He worked at Harvard University’s Museum of Comparative Zoology as a curator of entomology collections from 1964-1977. In 1977 he moved to Australia to work as a curator for the Australian National Insect Collection. In 1999 he was named an honorary fellow at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).

He became a naturalized Australian citizen in 1981.

As a beetle specialist, Lawrence’s primary interests are in the evolution and classification of major beetle groups, and the use of beetles as measures of biodiversity and indicators of the effects of human activities on natural habitats. He has published more than 100 books.

I remember my first encounter of the fact of segregation (no black kids at the proms and total segregation at lunch time.) It just wasn’t okay. Doc Haydis was a huge influence on me. Hyman (“Doc”) Haydis used what I later learned was the “Socratic Method” of teaching. That is, he asked questions– often difficult ones– and in so doing, he taught us to think more deeply about ourselves, our values, the world we lived in, and those we shared it with. Other influences were classmates Pat Brown and of course, Lonnie Hewitt.

My years at Tech were probably the most important and most transformative of my life: idealistic, painful, and quite wonderful. Oh, and of course there was Hank, my wonderful rock. Best friend and closeted gay man (and student body president) until we were 19.

I want to share with today’s Technites the huge impact that very special three years had on my life.

An All-American halfback at New Mexico State University in 1959 and 1960, Atkins led the nation in rushing and scoring with the Lobos in 1959. He later played professional football with the Los Angeles Rams, Washington Redskins and Oakland Raiders. He then became an actor in Hollywood in several movies including the famous sports film The Longest Yard in 1974.

The fifties were a time of extreme conformity. The (informal) dress code at Tech was rigorous. We groomed our white buck saddle shoes with precipitate of chalk. Socks had to be rolled just so, skirts a certain length. Sleeves and collars turned a certain way. Not so much fun. Further, there were cliques, groups, “car clubs”, and, of course, segregation.

It would be nice to say that the classes at Tech offered respite from these unpleasant societal norms, but, by and large they didn’t. The only classes I remember at Tech that were truly integrated were P.E. and Modern Dance. The rest of the time, there was tracking, a kind of de-facto segregation. As students, we didn’t know that much about it, (or how it worked) but, for me, there was always the fear of being put in a “bad” Social Studies class or a “bad” math class. It was important to be “college prep” for it meant you would get the “good” classes and, of course, the “good” teachers.

For me at least, those good teachers meant everything. And, at Tech in the late fifties, those teachers and their classes were outstanding. Whether it was the proximity to U.C Berkeley, or a fluke of some complex demographic or behind the scenes leadership I did not comprehend, my high school education was excellent.

I was a working class kid from Oakland, but I entered U.C. Berkeley ready and able to compete with the best that the Bay Area, the East Coast and mid-America had to offer. So, it is important that I list some names: Mrs. Ann Bisio, Miss Beatrice Burnett, Mr. Joseph Colistro, Mr. Peter Grimes, Mrs. Christal Murphy, Mr. Harvey Osborne, Miss Roberta Park, Mr. Sam Richardson, Mrs. Laura Stine, Mr. Joseph Tranchina, Miss Margaret Ward, and Mrs. Ruth Wilcox. Not every day was glowing or perfect, but it was serious and solid, and it prepared me very well indeed.

But, even as I write this, I realize that a small percentage of Technites received such an education. Few of us were in those excellent “good” classes; most were in the feared “bad” classes, and, after a lifetime of secondary teaching myself, I know, from the front of the classroom, what goes on in such classes. Sadly, it is not much learning.

So, it is with mixed emotions that I remember my time at Tech. It was very good for me– but my skin was white. I was the working class kid who lucked out.

Ron Dellums, Class of 1953, served as Oakland’s forty-eighth mayor, and from 1971 to 1998, was elected to thirteen terms as a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Northern California’s 9th Congressional District.

After graduating from Tech, Dellums served in the Marine Corps from 1954 to 1956. He received his M.S.W. from UC Berkeley in 1962, worked as a social worker and political activist, and held a seat on the Berkeley City Council from 1967 to 1970. In 1971, Dellums was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, the first African American elected to Congress from Northern California and the first openly socialist candidate to win a seat since World War II.

Dellums was an outspoken supporter of liberal causes and this support earned him a spot on President Nixon’s “Enemies List.” But he was revered on both sides of the aisle as a hardworking man of integrity and was especially well regarded for leading congressional struggles against South African apartheid. After a short stint as a legislative lobbyist in DC, Dellums was elected Mayor in of Oakland in 2006 at age 70. He served one term in office. He is now a Visiting Fellow at Howard University’s Ronald W. Walters Center, which focuses on the engagement of African Americans in the U.S. political process and on national and foreign policy.

Most of my time, 28-hours/week, was spent working at Emil Villa’s Hick’ry Pit as a busboy and dishwasher, along with Frank Higham and Chuck Engberson, so I didn’t have much time for other activities. The one outstanding memory was with [she shall remain nameless] in Study Hall and driving her to school on many cold and rainy mornings. (We got “re-connected” at the 2003 Reunion.)

The other was a short-term business of selling fire crackers. [Three other nameless] friends would take us to downtown Oakland to either individuals sitting on upside-down boxes on curbs with a carton of crackers underneath and we’d do a “roadside transaction.” If we were buying several cartons, we’d be guided inside warehouses where Grandpa was typically standing guard. We “marked-up” the prices for single packages and earned some extra gas money.

Gym classes with John Brodie were memorable too. Hand-lettering Graduation Certificates for Tech High is about the only “activity” I was able to participate in while attending school. I learned an alphabet from my Architectural Drawing instructor which I used for certificates for 114 launch viewers from South America of the Apollo 14 launch vehicle. I had to get a lady from Panama to assist me because some Hispanic names cannot be shortened for any reason. I also did the certificates for The Ford Foundation musical winners at the University of Utah, and many other social services.

I worked in Engineering Supportive Services from 1955-2001. Electro-Mechanical Drafting & Design–CAD-CAM, Proposal Writing. Directed a three-year employment program for the Salt Lake City Corporation for then-Mayor “Jake” Garn (later Utah Senator & Astronaut) to hire the socio-economically disadvantaged and incorporate EEO & Affirmative Action procedures. At that time I wrote an unsolicited proposal for the building-equipping of the first on-campus Fire Station #15 at the University of Utah. I also completed a two-year program in Vocational Rehabilitation Counseling and served a 9-month supervised Counseling Internship where I administered/interpreted MMPI’s and other tests the LCSW’s hadn’t been trained to do. I spent some time as an Executive Recruiter, Personal Counselor, Proposal-Prospectus, and Resume Writer, and Commercial Organizational Developer.

I was born in New Orleans. When we still lived in the south and I was little, because my dad worked for the railway, we got to travel for free and we used to go visit my grandparents in LA. The trains were segregated and the dining cars were closed to blacks. But the porters, who were black, were nice and used to heat your baby bottles. At stops along the way, you would look for black people so you would know where you could eat. We were so scared getting off the train. But in California, the trains weren’t segregated.

We came to Oakland in ’42 for jobs in the Southern Pacific Depot and the Naval Supply Yards. You could get jobs there if you were black. We lived on 20th and Wood, 9 of us in a 2-bedroom apartment in a project. It’s gone now. Our apartment shook when the trains went by because we were right next to the tracks. We used to wave at the soldiers as they passed through. It was an exciting time for us as there was lots of train activity.

McClymonds was my area school, but I wanted to go to Tech. I didn’t want to be at McClymonds with the kids I knew in the neighborhood. I was quiet and scared to go there. When I told my mom, she used my aunt’s address to register me for Tech. All my other 7 siblings went to McClymonds. I didn’t even know my aunt’s address and had to ask my mom before I started. They really checked addresses then because so many kids tried to go to Tech. The counselors used to ask, “What streets do you live between?” They had tables set up by 45th street on the first day of school and they asked that. There were more blacks in my day than in my cousin’s (she graduated in 1948) and I think they were trying to control that. They even started putting counselors on the bus to check who got off at 40th and Broadway to go to the mostly black areas. I knew some kids that got kicked out of Tech.

Tech was mostly white though and I never really had any white friends. The black kids used the 42nd Street door and the white kids used the 45th Street door. It was my first time being around whites. Once I left school at the end of the day, I wouldn’t see any whites except the bus driver until the next day at school. I remember when we saw the first black bus driver on our route, we all cheered him! He drove the 88, West Oakland to the army base to 14th and Broadway. That was my route. The only whites that ever came into our neighborhood were the milkman and the insurance man.

I wasn’t in college prep. I was in general studies. I took typing, shorthand, home ec. I was a good student and got good grades. I came out with very good clerical skills. There was very little mingling at lunch. We stuck to ourselves. We went to the same dances, but we stayed separate. Every once in a while, there was a mixed couple, but not very often. But everyone was nice and greeted each other in the hall. At Prescott, my junior high school, most of the teachers were black and they really worked us hard. I remember one teacher, Ms. Powell, who was the first black junior high school teacher in all of Oakland. She was very firm. At Tech, the teachers were white. I don’t remember a single black teacher. You were in a different land. They were nice, but they were strangers. You’d never been associated with people like that.

I remember down where the lockers were there was a snack bar and if I had some money, I used to buy a banana pie. It had big hunks of banana in it and was so delicious! The snack bar was only open during lunch.

Everyone went to the football games. Tech and McClymonds were the big rivals. After the games, we just ran to the buses before the fighting started. Even the girls fought. We were so scared! I was in the Girls Athletic Association (GAA). I was into sports. I rowed on Lake Merritt. And after school, I played tennis, badminton and volleyball, mostly intramural, not on a team. That was twice a week. I wish I had been a yell leader, but there were no black yell leaders then. You just knew it was a white thing. At Mac, of course, they were all black. That’s one advantage of going to a black school. You could do anything, any activity you wanted. I don’t even remember black clubs at Tech like there was a Chinese Club. There just wasn’t any black leadership. Everyone used to say, “If you’re white, you’re all right. If you’re brown, stick around. If you’re black, get back.” That’s how it was. I was very introverted, very quiet. I just wanted to go home after school. I wish now that I’d been more outward going. I didn’t venture out and that was a mistake. I’d just go home to take care of my brothers and sisters. My husband had a teacher at MyClymonds, Mrs. Heinmarsh, who saw he was smart and encouraged him to go to Cal. She had a big impact on a lot of kids there. She perished in the Oakland Hills Fire.

But Tech was a beautiful school and you felt good knowing that you went to the most beautiful school in Oakland. It felt good to me in a nice neighborhood.

I felt that I couldn’t go to college financially. I was steered by my parents to get a job after graduation. My cousin worked in the Naval Supply Station. Everyone knew they would hire blacks. It was really hard for black to get jobs downtown. I went to take the test and passed. The Southern Pacific hired lots of black too. My father worked in the laundry there. I graduated in June and got the job in July, a clerical job. I wasn’t in the top echelon (there were 5,000 employees there), but I did all right. I worked there from 1953-58.

Everyone separated after graduation. The whites went one way and the blacks went another way. Blacks didn’t move too much out of their area. I only stayed in touch with a few friends.

I married my boyfriend from Prescott Junior High School at age 18. We were married for 25 years and had 2 sons. We moved to San Francisco in ’59 for him to go to medical school. He had gone to Cal, which was really rare for a kid from McClymonds. He went to UCSF and we lived in University Village. Then we moved back to the East Bay and he practiced near Brookside Hospital. Our sons went to El Cerrito High. I have lived in the El Cerrito Hills for 45 years. I went back to school in the 70s and became a nurse. After our divorce, I worked as a nurse at Samuel Merritt.

I am glad I went to Tech. I don’t think I would have white friends today if I hadn’t gone to Tech and got the feeling of being with white people. Sitting next to each other, passing each other in the halls. You get used to them. My sisters who went to McClymonds have all black friends to this day. If you stay with your group all your life, you never mingle with others. I am glad I went to Tech and moved out of my comfort zone. I developed a new racial attitude.

I didn’t realize Tech is 100 years old! It didn’t feel like an old building when I was there. It was so beautiful, with a big green lawn and big redwood trees, maybe 4 or 5 on the sides. I remember we always took our club photos on the front steps.

My advice to kids today is to reach out more. Don’t be content to just come and go.

Salvtore Pecoraro’s artistic talent was already apparent when he was at Tech in the early 1950s. He earned an undergraduate degree from the California College or Arts and Crafts and a master’s degree in printmaking from San Francisco State. In a career as a painter and sculptor that has spanned five decades; Pecoraro has crafted many large-scale paintings and sculptures for private, public, and corporate clients. He also taught art for 40 years, including 28 years at De Anza College.

He lives and works in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

Angelo Marchi, first generation American whose parents emigrated from Italy, attended Tech because it was his school district. University High School had recently closed. Rockridge, where Marchi resided, was a very Italian neighborhood at that time. Tech was a good school academically and athletically. Marchi specifically remembers his American History teacher, Miss Leonard, who was a former WAVE. During his years at Tech, Marchi had a job selling papers and was in the Navy Reserve. After graduation, Marchi went into the Navy and was sent to Pearl Harbor. Marchi is proud to be an alum of Tech and maintains friendships with several of his former classmates, including his best friend, Aldo Dossa, Class of 1955.

One of my favorite memories of Tech is attending assemblies in the auditorium. The Delphians, of which I was president, were asked to put on a skit for one of the shows. Since I had just broken up with my boyfriend, I suggested we sing, “I’m Gonna Wash that Man Right Out of My Hair” from South Pacific. To my surprise, Rosalie Scott, Vice Principal, agreed to let us have water and soap on the stage. The first assembly went well, too well. We really got into it and soon water and soapsuds were all over the stage. By the second assembly the audience knew by our soggy appearance what was coming. The laughter preceded our singing. I don’t think water and soap were allowed again

Proverb Jacobs was a football and track star at Tech in the early 1950s, earning all-city honors in both sports. He later played for the University of California, Berkeley and was drafted as a lineman by the Philadelphia Eagles. He played a total of six seasons in professional football, including a stint with the Oakland Raiders in 1963 and 1964.

After finishing his professional career, Jacobs became a football and track coach at Laney College in Oakland. He earned a master’s degree from San Francisco State University and a doctorate from UC Berkeley. He recently authored a book, Autobiography of an Unknown Football Player, chronicling his childhood growing up in Oakland, his pro football career and his passion for coaching and mentoring youth.

One of my favorite teachers was Mr. Cuttitta who taught biology. He taught me a very important life lesson. He was off in the Korean War when the class started so we had a long-term sub for the first six weeks. I had managed to get A’s on all the exams the sub had given. I got A’s on Mr. Cuttitta’s tests too, but ended up with a B plus in the class, the only B I ever got in high school. He told me now you don’t have to worry about straight A’s! He also said you need to work to your ability, not just to the grade. I was upset initially, but I liked him so much. He was a wonderful teacher.

As our principal told us during orientation in 1951, “Tech is a melting pot with a mix of Caucasian, Black, Oriental and Hispanic students.” Oakland, in the early 1950’s and prior, did not have the conflict between different cultures that grew later on. And, nowhere on our campus was this more evident than in school sports. I was student manager of our championship football team and we had players such as John Brodie, Charlie Hardy, Proverb Jacobs, Pervis Atkins and Ray Norton, who all went on to excel both in college and professional football. I also served as sports editor of the Scribe for two years and even enjoyed being “Bobo the Bulldog,” the school mascot, during winter and spring sports.

I was a member of the Key Club, Future Teachers of America and the Block T Society and served as class treasurer my senior year. Our class was extremely active, and so many of them went on to successful careers and were responsible for starting the Oakland Tech Library Fund. I was proud to have been involved in the early days of this alumni group, and we were able to raise thousands of dollars to help rebuild the school library following a devastating earthquake and also provide scholarship funds to deserving students.

To this day, I still keep in contact with a number of classmates on a regular basis through email. Students at Oakland Technical High School, both past and present, should be proud of their school’s heritage. There have been so many distinguished alumni in every field of endeavor who are graduates of Tech.

Suzanne Westaway, Class of 1954 and Lauralee Westaway, Class of 1957

We (my sister Suzanne and I) grew up on the Rockridge border so instead of going to Claremont, we went to Woodrow Wilson. When we got to Tech, there was a mix of kids from all middle schools. I was very conscious that people from Claremont were wealthier and smarter and had had a better education than we had had at Woodrow Wilson. After our first year at Tech, people at Woodrow Wilson were interviewed because so many of us had gotten straight A’s in middle school, but we weren’t doing so well at Tech. More had been expected of students at Claremont. Ours wasn’t bad, but there was definitely a divide. Both Suzanne and I have kept in touch with lots of high school friends, but not in touch with that many from Woodrow Wilson. More of our friends in high school had gone to Claremont. We were on a different path and took college prep classes whereas friends from Woodrow Wilson were taking typing. I meet people at reunions that I knew all my life, but never had a class with them at Tech. The school was physically divided. The south part of school was business and the north part was college prep. The English classes were also very different¬ writing business letters vs reading A Tale of Two Cities. The school was more divided this way than along racial lines. A lot of my friends feel the school wasn’t as racially segregated as it became later. We had a lot of Chinese, Japanese, and Mexican (term used at the time) friends when we went to college and maybe 20% black. We weren’t so conscious of that. Maybe other people were. People who go back to reunions tend to be those who had a pretty successful time in high school and were happy. A lot of African Americans and Chinese come to our reunions, so based on that, I think they were pretty happy.

We were part of the journalism class at Tech and that class was split into two sections. One group published the newspaper ( The Scribe) and the other published the yearbook. Everyone was given a story or a page or a section. The editor would assign the people to the task. We went to Laney Trade School in downtown Oakland once a week to use their linotype machines. We spent the afternoon using their print room. I (Lauralee) had a locker at Laney Trade with a shirt in it to protect my clothes from the ink. The school paid for all of it. The head of the printing program at Laney Trade pulled me aside and told me I had a talent and should think about getting into printing. He said that I had an eye for design and lay-out and that this would be a good field for me. I didn’t feel that I was good enough to go into journalism, but I have no regrets about having majored in journalism. It got me ready for everything else I ever did. There is nothing I ever did that didn’t benefit from being able to write. You don’t get that from English classes. Journalism classes make you think in an orderly way and make you aware of the important issues.

At Cal, the racial divide kicked in. We never mixed with Asians kids. They all sat together in the library. But generally it was a good atmosphere. Times however were starting to change. We took things less seriously than those in the early 50‘s. We were into rock and roll and Elvis Presley and we wanted more freedom. We were active in school government and we were all very opinionated. At this time, we were becoming aware of politics in general. I remember being aware of Adlai Stevenson and Truman and the differences between them. We let our minds be open to more liberal traditions.

Suzanne went back to school and got a Masters in English and started a boat business and manufactured Lazer boats. One design ended up being a successful boat. I helped a friend write something and then one thing led to another. I did a little bookkeeping and eventually became Comptroller of the business. I also did some theater. I went from Cal to theater school in NY. When I came back to California, I started a company called One Act Theater Company in San Francisco and kept it going for 13 years.

Some favorite teachers were : Crystal Murphy for journalism, Ms. Beatrice Burnett for English, John Mortarotti for music, and Max Yulick for math

Kids liked their teachers. We remember almost all of our teachers and they were civil and good. There was no chaos in the classes (except when there was a substitute teacher). The staff was very competent and there was no talk of who was easier or harder.

Our generation mostly came from blue collar families or families of modest means. They were educated and very civic minded. They participated in their community. Our class made some significant donations to the Tech library fund. They respect education and have a sincere affection for the school. Some of our closest friends today are the people we went to Tech with.

Our advice for high schoolers now:
Do everything. If there is a lecture given, go to it. If there is a play, go to it. If there is a performance or whatever is happening, games, plays, participate. Be a part of everything that is going on. All of those things snowball into the things that make your life worthwhile. We went to everything. Everybody went to the football games unless you had a job and then maybe not. If there was a play, it was packed. Everyone went.

Our feelings on Tech turning 100:
It is just wonderful. Tech is a worthy institution and it means a lot to the community.

Aldo Dossa, whose parents emigrated from Italy, lived in the Temescal area and attended Tech because it was his school district. He remembers the atmosphere was friendly. He participated in baseball, basketball, and was on the swim team. He remembers most the drama classes and plays that he was in and enjoyed Mrs. Lynch, the drama teacher. He felt well prepared for his thirty-year career at Pacific Bell, and later as a computer consultant, because of the good academics at Tech, especially math and machine shop. Dossa has remained friends with many of his Tech classmates.

Bernice Lee Bing, an American artist of the Beat Era, was born in San Francisco’s Chinatown in 1936. When Bing was six years old, her American-born mother died. Following her mother’s death, Bing lived in Caucasian foster homes. Occasionally, she stayed in Oakland with her grandmother who recognized Bing’s artistic talent at the age of seven. Her praise launched Bing’s eventual art career. Bing also lived at the Ming Quong Home, a custodial home for girls, at the outskirts of Oakland’s Chinatown in the late1940s and the early 1950s.

In the mid-1950s, Bing attended Oakland Technical High School, graduating in 1955. She won numerous local and regional art contests while in high school. In 1958, she studied at the California College of Arts and Craft (CCAC) in Oakland and studied with teachers Saburo Hasegawa, Richard Diebenkorn, and others. At CCAC, Bing switched her major from advertising to painting. Following a semester there, Bing transferred to San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) where she studied with Elmer Bischoff and Frank Lobdell. Bing graduated from SFAI with two degrees– a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) and a Masters of Fine Art (MFA).

Bing became active in the San Francisco/Bay Area art scene following her graduation in 1961. Her art received critical acclaim from Alfred Frankenstein, critic for the San Francisco Chronicle. In 1967, she was one of twelve people in the first residential program at Esalen, a program focusing on humanistic alternative education in Big Sur. In 1968, Bing served as a panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts Expansion program. From 1969 to 1971, Bing worked with the Neighborhood Arts Program. In the early 1970s, she was involved with the San Francisco Art Festival at the San Francisco Civic Center. In 1977, after the Golden Dragon Massacre in San Francisco, she established an art workshop with the Baby Wah Chings, a Chinatown gang. She received awards in 1983 and 1984 for her community-related work. From 1980 to 1984, she established innovative programs at the South of Market Cultural Center. She traveled to the People’s Republic of China in the 1984-85 to study calligraphy and to give lectures on Abstract Expressionism.

Her career was revitalized in 1989 when she met Moira Roth, Trefethen Professor of Art History at Mills College. At Moira’s suggestion, Bernice joined the Asian American Women Artists Association (AAWAA), a move which blended her interests in art and identity. In 1990, she received an award from the Asian Heritage Council. She began exhibiting once again. In 1996, Bing received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Women’s Caucus for Art, the first Asian American artist to receive this honor. One of her paintings, Mayacamas No. 6, is currently in the collection of the De Young Museum. Bernice Bing died in 1998 from cancer. In 2013, AAWAA co-produced with the Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project (QWOCMAP) “The Worlds of Bernice Bing,” a film which pays tribute to her vast accomplishments.

(by Flo Oy Wong, artist, poet, educator, co-founder of the Asian American Women Artists Association (AAWAA), and a friend of the late Bernice Bing.)

Eddie played shortstop for Coach Al Kyte in 1954 and 1955 when the Bulldogs won the O.A.L. baseball title. He played two seasons of professional baseball in Japan with the Toei Flyers.

My father migrated to the Bay Area from Oklahoma in the 1930’s and married my mother who was a San Francisco native. My father’s line of work brought him to Oakland where he and my mother remained until their respective deaths. We lived in what realtors today call Lower Rockridge; however, we always called it the Temescal District. I went to Tech because it was the closest high school to my home within the school district.

Tech was exciting and new. There were always many activities and something to learn as a teenager. I always enjoyed the camaraderie of fellow students I met as well as new acquaintances I made. Nothing fazed me as ‘too hard’ to deal with. Meeting challenges head-on was a by-product of learning at Tech High. Because I worked part-time throughout high school, I didn’t have a lot of time for extra-curricular activities. However, I did join the Spanish Club, tried out for the swim team, and joined the Junior Achievement Club as well as several other clubs that slip my mind at the moment.

Some of the teachers and classes I remember are: Choir with Cecil Enlow who was an outstanding director and whom I also had the pleasure of working under at Oakland Junior College after his transfer from Tech; Iris Jones, a Choir teacher who brought great enthusiasm to her classes; Doris McEntyre and Donald Lucas, both English teachers who stimulated me to learn more about myself and the outside world; Coach Frank Johns, sports faculty member, was a warm and friendly coach who taught us how to be a fair and honest individual as a sports participant. Most impressive to me was our counselor, Ione McFessell, who guided me and my fellow students through our three years at Tech always being available for counseling on any subject. For me as a college preparatory student, the curriculum offered at Tech met the basics for college entrance, but I can honestly say now at the age of 76 that high school never prepares you enough for “life afterwards.”

After graduation, I attended Oakland Junior College briefly before entering the U.S. Air Force. Spending 4 years in the military definitely helped shape my character further as well as make me a more mature thinking individual.

At Tech, I developed close personal relationships with a number of fellow classmates and, after a lapse of 58 years, even today I still have contacts with quite a few members from my own class as well as other classes before and after me. My years at Tech taught me that respecting the diversity of individuals is tantamount to surviving in any environment. Four years of interaction with students and faculty began my ability to form my own thinking processes for a lifetime of learning “life lessons.” Being a Bulldog carried pride throughout the school years and 58 years later, still conjures up pride when I speak to those who were local students in the Bay Area with whom I come in contact from time to time. The competition between opposing Bay Area high schools during my years at Tech was always a stimulating experience.
The Tech building itself is such an imposing landmark, and one that I’ve admired all these many years since attending, that nostalgia and pride are two of the best words I can think of regarding the 100th anniversary of its existence. Just thinking of all the thousands of students who have walked the halls of Tech makes me proud that I had the opportunity to be among them.

To current Tech students, I would say to study as hard as possible while attending and grasp as much information as possible being imparted by your teachers. Prepare yourself for a lifetime of challenges, joy, happiness, sadness and every emotion in between.
May Oakland Technical High always maintain its reputation as one of the outstanding learning institution of Oakland as represented by the student body who have walked its fine halls and succeeded in life.

Parents: Don Thomas, Class of 1928 and Lorraine White, Class of 1927

My father was involved in The Scribe and it must have had a big impact on him because he continued on in journalism. He started out in Martinez or Pittsburgh and then worked his way up to become the Political Editor at the Oakland Tribune, a position he held for 30 years. Dad worked 12-14 hour days and was in Sacramento a lot, so he wasn’t very involved in my high school activities. But I don’t think parents really were back then.

I went to Tech because it was the only high school nearby. Montclair Elementary, Claremont Junior High and Tech: that was the path.

High school was not a particularly pleasant time for me. I was sick a lot. I had periods when I was out for a month at a time, twice with pneumonia and at least once with mononucleosis. I got behind and had to catch
up.
I did make some good friends and those friendships lasted until recently when a few have died. My closest friend was probably Richard Armstrong. He taught biology at Santa Barbara College. I tried to stay in touch with a few others, but it was hard to.

One of the most pleasant experiences for me was being on the rifle team. The team was part of ROTC. It was kind of a college prep thing. UC Berkeley had an ROTC program and it was a plus for getting in there. I was quite a marksman in those days. I started in junior high school, practicing on weekends. And at Tech, I got thoroughly involved. We had competitions against other high schools. Quite a few high schools had rifle teams. The rifle range was on the west end of the gymnasium on 45th Street, the side closest to Studio One. It was a separate room at that end of the gym building with access to the outdoors. The ROTC offices were in the boys gym too. I would practice daily in the early morning, before school started, for half an hour. We had our matches in the afternoons at various schools, even in San Francisco. Fremont High School had one. It was all boys. You won trophies and ribbons, like in any team sport and we got letters as in any sport. I usually came out as a high marksman. I think I set a record that might not have ever been broken. I am not sure when they terminated the rifle team.

The only other thing that stands out is that I started a mountaineering club with Richard Armstrong. We did rock climbing on Indian Rock and in the Berkeley Hills and even Yosemite. We did backpacking trips.
I came away with the feeling that I didn’t get a very good education at Tech. I wasn’t a particularly good student and the teachers didn’t seem to reach out to many students. A few kids did really well and the teachers seemed interested in them, but in general, I didn’t feel much of a connection with my teachers. From Tech I went to Oakland City College and then to Oregon State and San Francisco State. Then I was drafted into the Army between the Korean and Vietnam Wars. I served in the Medical Corps and was stationed at Fort Ord, near Monterey. After the Army, I went to work in a research lab at UCSF until government grant was terminated some years ago.

I lost all my high school memorabilia in the fire of 1991. Our home was one of the 3,000 destroyed.

When I was a kid, I played baseball all day long in the summers at Bushrod. We were there by 10:00 and just on our own, we played all day. In the evenings, we’d go to the Coast League Stadium. This had a lot to do with my wanting to play professional ball. In high school at Tech, I played football too, but the coach told me to pick one sport because playing both football and baseball, I could get hurt. Al Kyte was the coach and he was pretty strict. He made you grow up pretty fast. He made us go to class and the teachers made sure you stayed on track. That was the main thing I did at Tech. Sports. I had no plans for college. There were no sports scholarships back then.

After high school, I played professional baseball and in the summers I played in Puerto Rico. I played through 1969 and it was like with the owner of that LA team now. I was one of the only blacks on the team. When we traveled in the south especially, I had to stay in a separate facility. It was really tough. You had to really want to do it. People would say stuff. I didn’t realize what it was like until I went away. It was a shock and I had to be strong. The last year I played in Japan, it was even worse than it was here. I played in Puerto Rico in the offseasons, so I was playing year-round with no time for my body to rest.
The first winter I stayed home, I got lucky. I went into Roger’s downtown and got offered a job. I was there for 17 years. I enjoyed selling clothes more. Then I worked at Smith’s and then at C & R Clothing, Cutler Brothers and Men’s Warehouse. I did a little coaching with the semi-pro team Gallagher’s. And I went to the dedication of Ricky Henderson Field in 2009.

I married my high school girlfriend and had two kids. That marriage didn’t last and now I am remarried. I’ve got 3 grandkids.

Tech was influential in my growing up as I was a blind student and Tech was my first major exposure to sighted people and out of the protected world of the schools for the blind. The sighted students and staff at Tech really set the stage for what the world would be like and what I would have to face. I am sure that it was also quite a learning experience for the sighted students having at times 8 or 9 blind students there. Tech played an important role in the lives of many blind students and did it very well. I lettered all 3 years there in wrestling as did several other blind students, and we were also very active in choral groups and dance band and a few in the chess club.

Shirley Muzio Riggio lived in the North Oakland area, as did most of the students at Tech, following in her mother’s footsteps (who also attended Tech). She found the atmosphere friendly but there were cliques like anywhere else, mostly consisting of the wealthier kids. She participated in the glee club and the choir. She remembers fondly her biology teacher, Mr. Cuttita, because he made biology fun. She also remembers Mr. Lucas, who worked at the school, as a friendly man. After attending college for one year, she left to work for Pacific Bell. Riggio remains in contact with at least twelve or more of her former classmates who are her best friends. At Tech, she learned “to be tolerant of all people; some you like and some you don’t but give them a chance.”

Curt was the first African-American player to crack the St. Louis Cardinals lineup as a regular in 1958. He won seven gold glove awards over a 12-year career and hit better than .300 six times, with a career batting average of .292. He played in three All-Star Games and three World Series, winning two with the Cardinals.

Flood also left his mark on the game by challenging baseball’s reserve clause, suggesting that a player’s having no say in what team he played for was a form of slavery. Although he ultimately lost his case in the United States Supreme Court, his fight paved the way to free agency for major league players in 1975.

Remember “Bobo,” the school mascot? Well, one time in the 10th grade, I was asked to be the person dressed as Bobo! This was a very big deal as that person’s identity was a closely guarded secret at each football game. The yell leaders arranged for me to get a pink slip to leave class for a dental appointment. Then they spirited me into a small equipment room, where I was put into costume, with pillow and stuffing and finally the paper-mache head. They led me out and I bounced around for most of the game, clicking my heels when we made a touchdown. Hot, sweaty, but a big thrill!

Ray Norton was considered the world’s fastest human in 1959 and 1960. He was a football and track star at Tech in the 1950s. Later he became a world-class sprinter at San Jose State College. He won two gold medals at the 1959 Pan American Games before participating in the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome. He later played two seasons of professional football with the San Francisco 49ers.

After graduating high school in 1955, Norton initially went to Oakland City College staying for just one year.[2] He left in 1956 for San Jose State College, where he was coached by Lloyd (Bud) Winter. He first achieved national fame by equalling the world record of 9.3 for 100 y as a college junior, in San Jose on April 12, 1958.[3][4] The next year, 1959, was an outstanding one. He won three gold medals at the 1959 Pan American Games and he tied Leamon King’s record at the 100 m at 10.1 s in San Jose on April 18.[5] His achievements in 1959 were recognised by being voted Track and Field News’s United States Men’s Athlete of the Year – the inaugural award of this honour.[6]

In 1960, Norton carried on his impressive form of the previous year by tying four world records: he equalled the 220 y record of 20.6 s in Berkeley on March 19; equalled again the 100 y record of 9.3 s in San Jose on April 2; equalled the 200 m record of 20.6 s in Philadelphia on April 30; and equalled the newly set record for the 200 m of 20.5 s in Stanford on July 2.[3] He qualified for the 100 and 200 at the 1960 Olympics by coming first in both events at the United States Olympic Trials, equalling the world record in the process in the 200 m. However, his form at the Olympics itself deserted him, most probably because of nerves, and he finished a disappointing last in both the 100 and 200 m finals.

I am writing this for my husband, James A. Hansen, who graduated from Oakland Tech in 1957. His father, Howard James Hansen (who was born on July 5, 1912) and three aunts– Beatrice Hansen, Thelma Hansen and Norma Hansen– also graduated from Oakland Tech. Jim had several teachers that had also taught his father and aunts! Jim recalls that he took Woodshop and had the same teacher as his dad, but can’t remember his name.

Once, Jim was working on a project and a piece of wood split off and imbedded in his upper lip. He still has a small scar! During his sophomore year, he started working after school in the Janitorial Department and he worked there until graduation. Jim really enjoyed his high school years and loved Tech’s beautiful campus. After graduation, Jim joined the United States Marine Corp Reserves and attended Laney Trade School to become a plumber. He quickly became a superintendent on many large building projects and new housing tracts throughout the Bay Area. He celebrated his 50-year anniversary with the Plumber’s Union a few years ago.

We have been married for 51 years and have three children and four granddaughters.

(Contributed by his wife, Sandee Hansen)

Katy Emerson, nee Hollis, grew up on Thomas Avenue in Oakland. From 7th through 10th grade she attended the Anna Head School in Berkeley (now Head Royce). Just prior to her junior year, she attended summer school at Tech. One of her most vivid memories is sitting on the steps reading “Of Mice and Men.” A young man stopped and commented on the book. She joked it was probably the first teenage boy who had given her the time of day. She always thought of those steps as “her steps.”

She loved Oakland Tech so much; she persuaded her parents to let her transfer. She started at Tech in 1955 as a junior and immediately joined the drama department. She recalled performing in Harvey and Message from Mars. She also created a monologue from Joan of Arc, which she performed on stage. She won the National Drama Society Award for 1957, the year she graduated. She remembered that Mary E. Lynch was the drama teacher and she really liked her. When she graduated she attended the College of the Pacific as a drama major.

Katy was also a cheerleader for the basketball team. She loved the choir and band presentations. She remembered dances in the school gym and she recalled that their senior ball was at the Claremont Hotel. She felt the biggest divide was between the kids who were in college prep and the kids who were in shop. The variety of people was appealing to her.

After high school she attended college and married before she graduated. She and her husband moved to Oakley. They raised their 3 sons in an old school house on a dairy farm. Katy had so many former students of the schoolhouse stop and tell her stories that she decided to write a book about it. It is titled Iron House School. Her advice to current Tech students is “pursue your particular passions!” Katy’s aunt, Rachel Laurgaard, wrote Patty Reed’s Doll, a story about the Donner party and the book is widely read by young readers.

Suzanne Westaway, Class of 1954 and Lauralee Westaway, Class of 1957

We (my sister Suzanne ’54 and I) grew up on the Rockridge border so instead of going to Claremont, we went to Woodrow Wilson. When we got to Tech, there was a mix of kids from all middle schools. I was very conscious that people from Claremont were wealthier and smarter and had had a better education than we had had at Woodrow Wilson. After our first year at Tech, people at Woodrow Wilson were interviewed because so many of us had gotten straight A’s in middle school, but we weren’t doing so well at Tech. More had been expected of students at Claremont. Ours wasn’t bad, but there was definitely a divide. Both Suzanne and I have kept in touch with lots of high school friends, but not in touch with that many from Woodrow Wilson. More of our friends in high school had gone to Claremont. We were on a different path and took college prep classes whereas friends from Woodrow Wilson were taking typing. I meet people at reunions that I knew all my life, but never had a class with them at Tech. The school was physically divided. The south part of school was business and the north part was college prep. The English classes were also very different¬ writing business letters vs reading A Tale of Two Cities. The school was more divided this way than along racial lines. A lot of my friends feel the school wasn’t as racially segregated as it became later. We had a lot of Chinese, Japanese, and Mexican (term used at the time) friends when we went to college and maybe 20% black. We weren’t so conscious of that. Maybe other people were. People who go back to reunions tend to be those who had a pretty successful time in high school and were happy. A lot of African Americans and Chinese come to our reunions, so based on that, I think they were pretty happy.

We were part of the journalism class at Tech and that class was split into two sections. One group published the newspaper ( The Scribe) and the other published the yearbook. Everyone was given a story or a page or a section. The editor would assign the people to the task. We went to Laney Trade School in downtown Oakland once a week to use their linotype machines. We spent the afternoon using their print room. I (Lauralee) had a locker at Laney Trade with a shirt in it to protect my clothes from the ink. The school paid for all of it. The head of the printing program at Laney Trade pulled me aside and told me I had a talent and should think about getting into printing. He said that I had an eye for design and lay-out and that this would be a good field for me. I didn’t feel that I was good enough to go into journalism, but I have no regrets about having majored in journalism. It got me ready for everything else I ever did. There is nothing I ever did that didn’t benefit from being able to write. You don’t get that from English classes. Journalism classes make you think in an orderly way and make you aware of the important issues.

At Cal, the racial divide kicked in. We never mixed with Asians kids. They all sat together in the library. But generally it was a good atmosphere. Times however were starting to change. We took things less seriously than those in the early 50‘s. We were into rock and roll and Elvis Presley and we wanted more freedom. We were active in school government and we were all very opinionated. At this time, we were becoming aware of politics in general. I remember being aware of Adlai Stevenson and Truman and the differences between them. We let our minds be open to more liberal traditions.

Suzanne went back to school and got a Masters in English and started a boat business and manufactured Lazer boats. One design ended up being a successful boat. I helped a friend write something and then one thing led to another. I did a little bookkeeping and eventually became Comptroller of the business. I also did some theater. I went from Cal to theater school in NY. When I came back to California, I started a company called One Act Theater Company in San Francisco and kept it going for 13 years.

Some favorite teachers were : Crystal Murphy for journalism, Ms. Beatrice Burnett for English, John Mortarotti for music, and Max Yulick for math

Kids liked their teachers. We remember almost all of our teachers and they were civil and good. There was no chaos in the classes (except when there was a substitute teacher). The staff was very competent and there was no talk of who was easier or harder.

Our generation mostly came from blue collar families or families of modest means. They were educated and very civic minded. They participated in their community. Our class made some significant donations to the Tech library fund. They respect education and have a sincere affection for the school. Some of our closest friends today are the people we went to Tech with.

Our advice for high schoolers now:
Do everything. If there is a lecture given, go to it. If there is a play, go to it. If there is a performance or whatever is happening, games, plays, participate. Be a part of everything that is going on. All of those things snowball into the things that make your life worthwhile. We went to everything. Everybody went to the football games unless you had a job and then maybe not. If there was a play, it was packed. Everyone went.

Our feelings on Tech turning 100:
It is just wonderful. Tech is a worthy institution and it means a lot to the community.

Class of 1957 grad Len Gabrielson Jr. played for legendary collegiate baseball coach Rod Dedeaux at the University of Southern California before playing nine seasons in the major leagues. He graduated from the USC and played in the majors from 1960 through 1970, initially signing with the Milwaukee Braves in 1959 as an amateur free agent.  He hit for a career high batting average of .293 in 1965 for the Cubs and Giants. Both he and his father (Len Gabrielson Sr., Class of 1932) played for Tech’s long-time baseball coach Al Kyte.

Gabrielson was one of 22 Oakland Tech graduates who went on to play Major League Baseball, the 2nd highest total of any high school in the country.

 

Lily Brooks grew up on West Street between 40th and MacArthur. She loved her friends at Tech so much that when her parents moved to Hayward, she carpooled with her dad to Alameda where he worked and then took the 51 bus to school. Because of her long commute to school, she could not participate in extracurricular activities. However, lunching on the lawn with her pals and her fascinating college prep classes made up for her sacrifice. She made a good decision to stay true to Tech because she is still friends with her high school chums. Lily received her BA from St. Mary’s College and her Master’s Degree in Public Administration from USF.

Tech has had a lot of diversity from the year it opened. If you examine the yearbooks at 5-year intervals, you will see that Tech High always had a good representation of Asian, blacks, and Latinos. When I was there, Tech was the designated high school for students from another country who needed to get a good dose of English. I remember kids from Latvia and Germany. I didn’t have too much interaction with the Asian kids, so I am not sure what Asian countries the students may have come from. There were also kids from South America. Students were bussed in from the Oakland Army Base. You could see the old painted bus, much different from the AC transit and Key System, pull up.

“I particularly remember the Scribe newsroom and all the neat people I worked with there when I was a ‘cub’ under Mrs. Murphy, who knew how to sneakily get the best work out of her charges. She’d probably be pleased to know that despite my intentions at the time of becoming a doctor (she thought I should go into journalism, naturally), I bypassed medicine after all and ended up in TV and radio broadcasting and in writing, writing, writing all the time. It’s ironic that I had my own humor column at Tech (“The Green Blackboard”) and despite my best intentions, all these years later I still write humor now and then–and even get paid for it. Except for the getting paid part, some things never change. Except that I now have silver hair.”

Eric Wallace – Class of 1958

I played baseball at Tech with Al Kyte. I’d known him since I was 13. I played trombone in the dance band and tuba in the ROTC band. There were about 90 kids in the ROTC band and about 15 in the dance band. I did it because you had to take an art class. Most kids came into music at Tech already playing an instrument, but I started playing at Tech and did pretty well. The dance band played for money at different schools including private schools in the area. The teacher, Mr. Mortarotti, kept the money and then once a year, he took us all to his cabin in the Sierras and used that money for our food. Those were great times. I learned how to read music at Tech. He was surprised how well I played. I haven’t played since high school, but I learned how to appreciate all kinds of music, like symphonic music, at Tech.

I signed with Cincinnati after high school and spent one year in the minor leagues, which wasn’t really that great because I was playing with guys who had been there 2 or 3 years. It was like a big meat market. I wouldn’t recommend it unless you really love it. I know guys who did well and got bad breaks. If someone doesn’t like you, that’s it. It is better to get an education. The scouts know when you’re still early on in high school if they want you. Now they use colleges as a farm system, so there isn’t the money spent on farm teams today. You have to be in the right flow.

I was drafted into the Army in 1963. I had two years in the Army and 2 in the Reserves. I was sent to Germany. Then I worked for the post office in Oakland for 35 years and retired in 1995 to take care of my parents. I have one son. He went to college and is a banker.

Little did I know that Ms. Jensen, Office Practice teacher, during the 11th and 12th grade at Oakland Technical High School would have such an impact on my life. Of course we all thought she was tough (and she was), but for me it was always a challenge to “meet” her challenges and that I did. The importance of my doing well in my business classes was huge…it was my parents dream for me to one day work in an office…a work environment they looked up to, but what was not available to them in the 1950s.

Ms. Jensen’s assignments were on a contract basis. She would teach a group of skills, e.g., how to set tabs on a manual typewriter, how to increase your typing speed, how to create a business letter, personal letters using proper form and salutations and even thank you notes. Students were then given the contract and you completed the tasks at your own pace or when you got them perfectly correct and they had to be absolutely perfect…”almost” was not her style. Little did I know how far these skills…time management, organization, creative writing…would take me. I began my career as a secretary (immediately after graduating) for a very important business man in the Bay Area and then rose through the ranks of administrative positions at the University of California, ultimately becoming an assistant to the dean of a major business school. Ms. Jensen formed the foundation for my 50+ years of success and to this day I remember the things I learned in her class. Little did I know.

My favorite memories of Oakland Tech are being a song girl and having so many friends of different nationalities. Tech gave me the experience and knowledge to have a successful life. I was elected three times to Murray School Board in Dublin, CA and in 1982, I was elected to the first Dublin City Council when the city was incorporated. I was reelected in 1984 and 1988, served as Dublin’s second Mayor from 1986 to 1988, and was Vice Mayor from 1990-1992. I retired from my elected political offices after seventeen years of service to my community. I was honored to be Artist of The Year 2013-2014 in my senatorial district. My art was shown at the State Capitol, Sacramento.

Perhaps my favorite memories of my years at Tech are of being in the choir under Iris Jones and then Harry Spencer. Both were excellent directors and fun to be around. We always opened our big musical programs with, ” It’s time for music, soft and sweet and low…” We visited junior highs and gave concerts, went to Cal State competitions, and sang for graduation. Music has been a big part of my life ever since, and I will always be grateful for those two teachers who gave me a start in choral singing. Iris Jones later visited my classroom as a music supervisor for the Oakland Public Schools when I taught at Franklin School in Oakland. She was still a dynamic teacher, this time to my first and second graders.

A sprawling campus, beautiful to the eye.
A place to learn and grow.
Wooden staircases and graceful arches.
Hushed library.
Purple and gold.
“Go Bulldogs! GO!”
The Talisman.
Friendships made and lost.
Continuity as my father Abraham Rosenthal graduated from Tech in 1930.
I, following in his footsteps, in 1958.
That’s my “Oakland Tech”

My family moved to Oakland the summer before my senior year. Janice Neuns, who was a year behind me, walked with me to school that first day. A student named Michael Crane gave me a tour of campus. I have been ever grateful for being assigned to Miss Burnett’s English class. I was assigned to advanced art even though I had never had an art class. Mr. Sam Richardson so inspired me that I took some art in college and have continued with it as a hobby. After learning that I had two years of yearbook experience, Miss Murphy consented to consider my two years on a yearbook staff as a substitute for the required journalism class. I started dating the sports editor, Mike Wirtz. We will celebrate 52 years of marriage in October.

I have procrastinated about writing this because my experience at Tech was so central to my development as a person that I fear I cannot do it justice, nor do I completely understand its complexity.
I grew up during a very special time in Oakland. While the post World War II years presented the challenge of a high cost of living, they also presented a time of high employment. Both my parents were able to work, and we lived comfortably in a rented house, with a fairly new car and time and money for a few luxuries.

School was fun for me and I always had to walk long distances to get there. By junior high and, later, during my time at Tech, I covered these distances with heavy stacks of books in my arms. (We would not have been caught dead with back-packs in those days.)
The fifties were a time of extreme conformity. The (informal) dress code at Tech was rigorous. We groomed our white buck saddle shoes with precipitate of chalk. Socks had to be rolled just so, skirts a certain length. Sleeves and collars turned a certain way. Not so much fun. Further, there were cliques, groups, “car clubs”, and, of course, segregation.

It would be nice to say that the classes at Tech offered respite from these unpleasant societal norms, but, by and large they didn’t. The only classes I remember at Tech that were truly integrated were P.E. and Modern Dance. The rest of the time, there was tracking, a kind of de-facto segregation. As students, we didn’t know that much about it, (or how it worked) but, for me, there was always the fear of being put in a “bad” Social Studies class or a “bad” math class. It was important to be “college prep” for it meant you would get the “good” classes and, of course, the “good” teachers.

For me at least, those good teachers meant everything. And, at Tech in the late fifties, those teachers and their classes were outstanding. Whether it was the proximity to U.C Berkeley, or a fluke of some complex demographic or behind the scenes leadership I did not comprehend, my high school education was excellent.

I was a working class kid from Oakland, but I entered U.C. Berkeley ready and able to compete with the best that the Bay Area, the East Coast and mid-America had to offer. So, it is important that I list some names: Mrs. Ann Bisio, Miss Beatrice Burnett, Mr. Joseph Colistro, Mr. Peter Grimes, Mrs. Christal Murphy, Mr. Harvey Osborne, Miss Roberta Park, Mr. Sam Richardson, Mrs. Laura Stine, Mr. Joseph Tranchina, Miss Margaret Ward, and Mrs. Ruth Wilcox. Not every day was glowing or perfect, but it was serious and solid, and it prepared me very well indeed.

But, even as I write this, I realize that a small percentage of Technites received such an education. Few of us were in those excellent “good” classes; most were in the feared “bad” classes, and, after a lifetime of secondary teaching myself, I know, from the front of the classroom, what goes on in such classes. Sadly, it is not much learning.
So, it is with mixed emotions that I remember my time at Tech. It was very good for me– but my skin was white. I was the working class kid who lucked out.

I lived in the Temescal District and attended Tech because it was in my school district. I feel Tech prepared me well for my job in an insurance company, particularly the various business classes such as typing and shorthand. I had many friends at Tech, some of whom are my best friends today. When I tell people I went to Tech, they usually know that I was a Bulldog and that feels good. When I attend reunions with my husband, (also a Tech alum, Aldo Dossa, Class of 1955), I am impressed by the quality and friendliness of his Tech classmates.

Huey Newton, Class of 1959, was a political activist and co-founder of The Black Panther Party for Self Defense, a black revolutionary socialist organization that was active from 1966 until 1982. Newton was born in Louisiana and moved as a child to Oakland, attending Oakland public schools and graduating from Tech. His education was interrupted by several arrests when he was a teen, and he wrote in his autobiography Revolutionary Suicide that he didn’t know how to read when he graduated high school.

He went on to attend Merritt College in Oakland where he became more interested in politics; together with Bobby Seale he founded the Black Panthers in 1966. The group was deeply involved in the Black Power Movement and believed that the threat of force was necessary to effect social change. The Panthers organized social programs in Oakland like the Free Breakfast for Children Program and the Oakland Community School. Newton earned a bachelor’s degree from UC Santa Cruz in 1974 and a PhD in 1980.

Throughout his years with the Black Panthers, allegations of violence and gun possession followed Newton, and he was convicted in 1967 of the death of an Oakland police officer. Newton and the Black Panthers were accused of being supported by the Communist Party and were a focus of FBI scrutiny. For a time, Newton moved to Cuba to escape assault charges.

In 1989 Newton was shot to death in West Oakland, in the very neighborhood where he began his outreach work with the Black Panthers by a member of a rival black power group called the Black Guerilla Family. His killer was sentenced to jail for 32 years. Huey Newton is buried at Evergreen Cemetery in Oakland.

My family moved to Oakland during World War II. My dad worked in the shipyards. Until about 1952, we lived in the projects on 7th Street across from the Oakland Auditorium. During high school, we lived on Oak St. across from Lake Merritt. I went to Tech because we lived in that district.

Tech had great school spirit. It was a fun place to be. I remember the music program there. I had to be at orchestra practice at 7 AM! I was in the marching and the concert bands, the orchestra, and the dance band. We played at dances and assemblies. I remember the music teacher, Mr. Mortarotti (or “Mr. Mort”). I had him for orchestra and dance band. Dr. Kime was the band teacher. They were really great teachers. Music was my life at Tech. I was proud to wear the Tech band uniform with a bulldog on it.

After Tech, I attended Oakland Junior College (Oakland City College) for two years.

Most of my relationships were at my church. Most of those kids went to Oakland High, Fremont, or San Leandro.

At Tech, I learned to be dependable and to be on time. I learned how to get along with a diverse group of fellow students.

To today’s Tech students, I would say, learn and use the “Golden Rule” (treat others the way you want to be treated), be honest, and study hard.

Above the basement classroom door, a sign: Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here. On this, our first day at Tech, the halls felt cavernous, the upperclassmen loomed huge and intimidating, and we were nowhere near prepared for English with Mr. Joseph Domenic Tranchina.

Bell rang, and in stormed a furry, gum-chewing fireplug of a man. “Welcome to college. I am going to make you work like you never worked before. Take paper and a writing implement and write a review of the best book you ever read. You have ten minutes.”

My memory of Mr. T. remains vivid despite 55 years of vigorous living. There were many memorable teachers before, but never one so charismatic or demanding. Mr. T. taught the joy of over-achievement, of playing above our game. Mountains of homework; massive, challenging reading assignments; pages upon pages of written work in every imaginable genre: haiku, essay, quatrain, dialogue, blank verse, sonnet, story, all assembled into a notebook he graded once a report period. His comments, scrawled in green ink, were sometimes scathing, sometimes profound, but just often enough, and best of all, his rare “Well done.” To this day, when I offer someone my highest praise, it is with T’s words: Well done.

A half century later, Joe Tranchina’s spirit and inspiration touch me every day. He passed to me, and, I imagine, to many, a love for heroically undertaking insurmountable opportunities.

Nell Irvin Painter ’59 is an American historian who has served as the president of the Organization of American Historians and the Southern Historical Association. Born in Houston, she and her family moved to Oakland when she was an infant as part of the Great Migration, during which African Americans from across the south moved to urban areas to find jobs in the defense industry during World War II. After graduation from Tech, Painter earned a BA in Anthropology at UC Berkeley, and studied abroad in France and Ghana. She earned a Master of Arts at UCLA in 1967, and a MA and PhD from Harvard in 1974.

Upon receiving her doctorate, Painter began teaching at the University of Pennsylvania, and eventually went on to be an assistant professor and professor at UNC Chapel Hill from 1978-88. She then moved to Princeton University in 1988 as a professor of American and African-American History, and remains a Professor Emeritus there. She is particularly interested in the experiences of African Americans, women, and the poor and working classes, those people who weren’t necessarily covered in traditional American history books. A prolific author, Painter has written many scholarly articles as well as books about Sojourner Truth, the Exodusters, and Hosea Hudson.

Among the awards given to Painter are the Radcliffe Institute Fellowship, 1976-77; John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellow, 1982-83; Black Alumni Club, University of California, Berkeley, Alumnus of the Year, 1989; American Antiquarian Society, Peterson Fellowship, 1991; National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow, 1992-93.

I was born in Oakland. I lived in Temescal, then Montclair. I went to Oakland Tech because I lived in the district. It was the 1950s, so it was like the TV show Happy Days. I remember eating lunch under the big tree on the front lawn, PE Class, Home Ec Class. I ran for office and worked on the yearbook and newspaper.

My most memorable teachers were Mr. Bosch and Crystal Murphy. One of my best friends was Elena Lim (now Elena Wong). After Tech I worked in my family restaurant until I was 30, when I moved to Mississippi to go to college. Tech taught me to be tough and take care of yourself.

I had a distinguished career teaching on the university level and received many awards, wrote books, traveled, spoke at conferences, and now in retirement I still teach online.
(http://www.linkedin.com/in/pattishock for more background.)

I don’t have any thoughts about Tech turning 100, since I just turned 72. But, yes, I am proud to be a Tech alum.

My advice for current Tech students: Education does not stop when you graduate. You must be involved in lifelong learning to be successful.

Roy Shivers, Class of 1959, became the first African-American general manager of a professional football franchise, the Saskatchewan Roughriders of the Canadian Football League in 1999. He played for Tech in the late 1950s and then left Oakland to serve in the U.S. Army. He played football at Utah State University before being drafted by the N.F.L.’s St. Louis Cardinals in 1966 with whom he played for seven seasons. After he stopped playing, Roy coached football at Merritt College in Oakland, the University of Nevada, University of Hawaii and the University of Nevada-Las Vegas before going to the Canadian Football League.

I attended Rockridge Elementary and Claremont Junior High before coming to Tech. I loved high school. I always sat in the first row and had an answer for everything. My favorite classes were Spanish, choir, glee club, and stagecraft (building sets and painting). I was a thespian and a performer, performing in anything and everything. I was Annie in “Annie Get Your Gun” and the peddler’s girlfriend in “Oklahoma.” I sang and danced. I also read to blind students at Tech. We had readers for that. I remember George Bliss, the principal. I was also Tech’s bulldog mascot for basketball. There were try-outs to be the mascot. You had to dress up in a stinky, sweaty costume. The head was fiberglass. It was a secret who Bobo was. Everyone thought it was a boy. There was a big revelation at the assembly at the end of the year. Everyone would write down the names. They never guessed me. What I remember most was ironing the blue gym suit. You had to stand for inspection every Monday morning in a starched and ironed uniform. I never did anything wrong, so I don’t know what happened if you didn’t pass inspection. We wore “middies” on Fridays, but in my mom’s time, the girls wore them every day. I remember my mother telling me to “take typing, because you can always use the skill.” She was right! Typing skills saved my life over and over with furthering studies and employment. If you have keyboarding skills, you can express yourself and no one can steal your ideas. I am still close to my Tech friends today. I graduated with Huey Newton and I remember he sent a telegram from Soledad for our 10th reunion!

High school is academic, but it is also an opportunity to get to know yourself. One amazing thing at Tech was that they gave you an aptitude test in 11th grade and they said I would work with animals and live in the country. And I said no way. But I married the Oakland zoo director and lived in Africa! After that I moved to the country. Now I am not suited for Oakland any more.

After high school, I worked under Bill Mott at Children’s Fairyland and then at the San Francisco Zoo, where I met Lutz Ruhe, whose family had been in the zoo business for four generations. He and his brother had started the Oakland Baby Zoo at Knowland Park and he and I became co-owners. We sold it to the Oakland Zoo Society in 1975. After five years in television on “Romper Room” on ABC/KGO, “Froggy’s Club House” on KBHK, and “I’ve Got a Secret” on KPIX, and co-hosting with Marlo Thomas for a St. Jude’s Hospital Fund Raising Drive, I went off to Africa in 1969 and worked as a safari guide in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda until 1978. Then we settled in Coarsegold and I taught ESL and adult education in Fresno for 25 years.

My advice to today’s students is to have a great time but keep you eyes and ears open. Take advantage of every opportunity you have. You never know what is going to guide you. You have the chance to stretch your wings and experience things that are deeply within you.