Shakespeare on the Pecos: Originally Published as Dead Javelinas Are Not Allowed on School Property

By Charlena Chandler

Charlena Chandler of Midland is a retired teacher and a very good writer. Ive mentioned before how much I enjoyed her collection of Odessa American newspaper columns in Not Far from Dryden. Teachers, young and old, and anyone else who has fond memories of some favorite teachers, will appreciate the experiences and commentaries in this informal memoir. Sections cover literature, football, cheerleading, school publications, extracurricular activities and other topics. -Glenn Dromgoole, Texas book reviewer and author

Captures the essence of small town schools in West Texas a delightful foray into the relationship of teacher and students. -Patrick Dearen, Award-winning Western novelist and Pecos river historian

Chandler coached students in many UIL contests, bringing home numerous honors to her school. She is also a superb writer who brings words to life in her descriptions of our unique but beautiful West Texas. -GARY HAMILTON, Superintendent, Terrell County ISD

Charlena Chandlers writing about my hometown is a charming mix of classical and country, a walk down memory lane, a dose of mom and apple pie. Her style is unique, but her stories are universal. -SUEANN WADE-CROUSE, Iraan native, Austin activist, and blog writer (verysmartgals.blogspot.com)

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jun 26, 2015
• ISBN: 9781491764930

Charlena Chandler

Chandler is from Iraan, a small oil-field town in the Trans-Pecos area of Texas. She is also the author of On Independence Creek: The Story of a Texas Ranch, published by Texas Tech University Press. Photo: Sam Hollis, Midland, Texas

Book preview

Shakespeare on the Pecos

Charlena Chandler

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Shakespeare on th e Pecos (Originally published as Dead Javelinas Are Not Allowed on School Property. Revised.)

Copyright © 2015 Charlena Chandler.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-4917-6492-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-6493-0 (e)

iUniverse rev. date: 06/24/2015

Contents

Part One The beginning

Introduction

Who, me… a teacher?

Little bastards

What’s in a name?

Lonely lunches

Time to pretty up

Miss Super Teacher

Part Two Literature

Adventures in literature

When pigs fly

Love on the moors

Mockingbird

That’s all she rote

In a nutshell

Now let’s write a story

Free advice

King James, please

East meet West

In the news

Check your compulsory

Part Three Football

The home team

A most joyful moment

The mysterious stranger

No joy in Mudville

Part Four Cheerleading

Cheers!

The man behind the herkie

No treats for heroes

The cruelest month

Part Five School publications

Power of the press

My first by-line

Collusion—UIL and ILPC

Yearbook—thanks, but no thanks

Part Six Extracurricular

Dancin’ the night away

The business teacher and the Governor

In-service blues

Respect for school property

Playing possum

The world’s a stage

Endless night

In defense of motherhood

Tradition

Big fish in a little pond

This book is written for and dedicated to

high school journalism teachers

high school English teachers

high school teachers

teachers

Foreword

You may not believe this, but there was a time when high school students read newspapers. A few even entertained the notion of becoming newspaper reporters and were willing to talk to strangers and ask them interesting questions, then write stories that other high school students would read.

These young journalists carried notepads and pencils. One or two might even have owned a little tape recorder. Journalism meant reporting, and reporting meant digging for stories, one source at a time.

No one had an iPhone. There was no Facebook, no Google, no Twitter, nothing like the computer-generated plagiarism that exists in the student media today.

I miss those days.

Fortunately, I was able revisit them through Charlena Chandler’s book.

It reminded me of my own days on the student newspaper staff in a small East Texas school. Kay and Bill and Carol and I weren’t all that good, but we had a great teacher, and we forged life-long friendships, and somehow, we cranked out an eight-page newspaper every other week that people looked forward to reading.

Even the football coaches read it, although they didn’t always appreciate my humor or prognostications. Still, seeing my name in print every two weeks, and having guys who were far more successful and popular than me stop me in the halls and say, I read your story. Not half bad. That was sweet.

Oh well, I didn’t mean to ramble, but that’s how I felt reading these chapters. They take me back to my days as a high school kid, as a beginning reporter and copy editor for a crappy daily newspaper, and as a wide-eyed, wet-behind-the-ears director of Texas’ scholastic press association. I remember the thrill of handing gold medals to country kids, who went home and bragged that they got to ride an actual escalator in Austin and that, oh, yeah, they won something too.

I remember trying to craft a decent explanation to a crying student whose outstanding editorial lost to something I would be happy to use the next year as a bad example. I remember trying to explain the whole the decision of the judges is final after learning the judge was a moron.

So, if you’ve advised a student publication, or if you’ve been a member of a student newspaper or yearbook staff, you will want to pick up this book. It’ll take you back to a simpler time, and it’ll remind you of all the lessons journalism teaches and why it remains—if taught by a passionate, dedicated, well-trained adviser—one of the most important courses in the American secondary curriculum.

-Bobby Hawthorne

(Hawthorne’s name became linked interchangeably with high school journalism in Texas when he served as the University Interscholastic League Director of Journalism and also headed up the Interscholastic League Press Conference during the 1980s and 1990s, the era this book relives. He later became Director of UIL Academics and is the author of Longhorn Football: An Illustrated History and Home Field, both published by the University of Texas Press.)

Author’s Note

Every incident in this book is based on pure truth, although some of it is embellished. That’s one of the privileges granted to those who write memoirs.

For brevity’s sake, some characters and events are composites.

Adults are identified by titles and last names. First names only are used for students. Some names have been changed. Others have not. There is no explanation for this.

Acknowledgements

Parts of this book previously appeared as guest columns in The Odessa American, Odessa, Texas. My thanks to the editors of that publication.

With great appreciation to—

Jeff, for proofreading.

The writers of the longer pieces who gave permission to use their work.

Those who keep the trains running in schools everywhere.

My students in Iraan High School. You provided the copy for this book. No, I can do better than that. You are the copy for this book.

And to William Shakespeare who wrote,

Oh, this learning, what a thing it is!

Part One

The beginning

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Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, Oct. 1960—AUTUMN LEAVES—Charlena Chandler, a Texas Tech senior from Iraan, thinks fall is the prettiest season of all after seeing the beautiful many-colored leaves Saturday. Charlena was photographed in Mackenzie State Park, one of few places trees are found in the flat West Texas plains.

Introduction

Iraan, Texas—

"In 1926, when the Yates No. 1-A, now called the Discovery Well, blew in with the capability of producing 77,000 barrels of oil per day, a new era in the petroleum industry was born.

"Employees of the Mid-Kansas Oil & Gas Company, who were drilling on land owned by Ira and Ann Yates, witnessed the beginning of what was to become, at one time, the largest oil field in the United States.

Mid-Kansas and many others would evolve into Marathon Oil. In 2003, the Yates Field was purchased by Kinder Morgan. Even today, with diversified interests, Iraan is still a company town, named in honor of Mr. and Mrs. Yates.

-Chamber of Commerce brochure

From the San Angelo Standard-Times, Analysis allows school comparison. Ron Durham, Aug. 28, 1994.

". . . Looking for the highest teachers’ salaries around? Apply to Iraan.

"Educators in the Iraan-Sheffield school district made an average of $35,810 and administrators $56,646. With its rich oil and gas fields, Iraan can afford to pay the teachers well because of its astounding tax base of nearly $2.8 million per pupil.

Appropriately, the Iraan district also had the highest per pupil expenditures in the area last year with $8,713 in operating expenditures alone, not counting capital expenses.

(Comparison table: Midland, Odessa, San Angelo, Abilene and eighteen smaller West Texas schools. Note: Our oil field neighbors, Big Lake, Rankin, McCamey and Crane, also prospered in those good old days.)

The district’s wealth had nothing to do with the reason I started teaching in Iraan—or why I stayed. Proximity rather than prosperity made it an easy decision.

Iraan and I go back a ways.

I grew up on a ranch fifty miles from that small town in Pecos County. After my first seven years in a country school at the ranch, my parents enrolled me (eighth grade) and my sister, JoBeth, (fifth grade) in Iraan. Six cousins on the Chandler side of my family had previously attended school there. Both my daughter and son are IHS graduates, but I’m getting ahead of the story.

Although I later became a teacher in my hometown and retired from the school system in 2000, this book is not a history of the school or the town.

The following words represent only my impressions and opinions, as memoirs usually do, and therefore should not be taken seriously by bona-fide historians.

I’ve always liked books about teaching and by teachers. Among the multitude of books written concerning the joys and miseries thereof, two stand out in the crowd for me, beacons in a dark night. They should be required reading for all prospective teachers.

The first is fiction, relating to another world and time away. Goodbye, Mr. Chips by James Hilton is a classic about an old-fashioned, much-loved teacher in a boys’ school in England, written in 1933.

The second is a modern classic, Teacher Man by Frank McCourt, an Irishman who won the Pulitzer Prize for Angela’s Ashes. I have filched a few techniques from Mr. McCourt as he writes of his tenure at the prestigious Stuyvesant High School in New York City. (Is borrowing not the most sincere form of admiration?)

What do these two have in common with my years of teaching in Iraan (pronounced Ira-an) High School, a school called remote but remarkable by a state official in 1938?

Everything.

Mr. Chips, Mr. McCourt, and I were teachers in settings as totally unlike the other as day and night. But still, we were fellow teachers. That’s enough bonding to join us forever, make us members of the same fraternity, so to speak.

I shall remain especially fond of teachers and students for the remainder of my days, perhaps especially so now in retirement when I have more time to reflect upon the mysteries of life, which I still haven’t figured out.

The first sentence alone of Mr. Chips may have been written for me—or for you if you are a retired teacher.

Or retired from whatever.

Or just tired.

When you are getting on in years… you get very sleepy at times, and the hours seem to pass like lazy cattle moving across a landscape.

In many of those hours, some of my lazy cattle, in the form of memories, move across the landscape.

Who, me… a teacher?

It’s noble to teach oneself. It is still nobler to teach others and less trouble.

Mark Twain

Twain may have imagined it was less trouble, but I must disagree with the dear man, while admitting he was dead-on with the nobility part.

Educating the multitudes that drift into classrooms across our land every day is not a job for the weak-hearted. I can’t, for the life of me, understand why anyone would want to do it.

I never intended to become a teacher.

I was always envious of my friends who said with determination from childhood on, I’m going to be a ‘fill in the blank’ when I grow up. Surprisingly, many of them did just that. They grew up to be outstanding citizens and filled in the blanks.

Never having set my sights on any particular goal, I drifted into the field of education as chaff during a sandstorm.

The registration lines were long at Texas Tech in the fall of 1959. I recall the day vividly, even down to my attire. I wore a pleated cotton skirt with a white blouse adorned with a circle pin. Neat loafers and white socks completed my outfit and I, in my own self-centered way that makes being young so grand, imagined that I looked quite cute.

A discerning reader may ask how it is possible that I can describe in detail what I wore on that long-ago day. No trouble at all. That’s what every co-ed on every campus across the land chose to wear that day. We were clones before it was possible.

This is 1959.

While I can easily picture the scene, I have a little more trouble recalling exactly what was on the copies of my transfer transcripts that the counselor was puzzling over. My educational background to this point will give one an idea of my lack of direction.

I was a transfer student from Odessa College and Texas Woman’s University, without a substantial idea in mind, still blowing in the wind with such a hodge-podge of hours that no one seated at the table under the sign Undecided could figure out what my major field would or should or could be.

Just exactly what do you hope to accomplish at Tech? the registrar behind the table questions. If I had been totally truthful (is there any other way?), I would have said, "Sir, I would really like to meet one of these nice young men I see hanging out over at the Student Union Building or strolling around the campus or attending mixers at Horn Hall.

Then I would like to get married and quit worrying about all this education stuff.

You might say that’s really why I’m here, but I have to pretend otherwise. So let’s pretend together.

Maybe I’d like a degree in English, I told the counselor. He peered intently at me through his horn-rimmed specs, then glanced at my transcript again, reducing me to a stutter

But, but, I love to read. Why, I read all the time. Some of my friends say I am no fun at all because I just want to lie around and read all day. But, if my use of the word ‘lie’ rather than ‘lay’ proves anything, I at least know a bit of grammar and standard English usage. That alone should qualify me for an English degree.

Unimpressed, he came close to telling me to forget it.

It will take three years, at least, of intensive English hours, as you only have the prerequisites, he said.

Well, how about journalism? I asked. I was the editor of both my high school paper, the Broadcaster, and the Odessa College Roundup. I had always harbored the idea that somewhere in my distant future I would be a newspaper reporter, maybe even a columnist, with many readers longing daily for my brilliance on the printed page.

Nope, same problem. He undoubtedly was a very kind soul, but he was tiring of me by now, and the lines behind me were getting longer by the minute.

There were lots of undecideds at Tech that fall semester.

How many years do you want to attend Texas Tech, Charlena?

Is there any way I could get a degree in anything in two years? I begged. My parents were paragons of patience, but there was a limit. They had hauled me around too many times and were tired of listening to my justification for each move and career plan. My mother thought each new major was absolutely wonderful, but that was my mother’s personality. My father was simply tired of my indecision and wanted me to settle down.

How about education, have you ever thought about being a teacher? With a teaching major of journalism (now in the Department of Mass Communications, but just plain vanilla journalism then) and a minor in English, you could make it in two, with a heavy load and no electives.

Hmmm, well, maybe. But only if I could teach little kids.

Charlena, English literature and journalism are not taught in elementary school, he said. He was now convinced that I was not college material.

Oh, yes, I wasn’t thinking. That sounds just fine. I would love to be a high school teacher. Sign me up.

My parents were skeptical. I had probably just gone off on another half-baked path. But they agreed, with this thought in mind. You can always fall back on teaching. That’s what everyone said then, as if it were some sort of big puffy cushion. My mom and dad, Mildred and Joe, were tactful enough not to add the obvious… and start supporting yourself like a real grown-up.

Okay, I’ll give it a try, I thought dubiously.

Although my professional goals at Tech got off to a shaky start, I loved the school from the get-go. Dorm life in Horn Hall with some fantastic friends, work as a resident assistant, sorority social life—I pledged Theta as a junior—the beautiful campus, and time spent working on the newspaper in the old Journalism Building. I thought I was in heaven. The icing on the cake came when I was elected to Theta Sigma Phi, the honorary society for women in journalism, my senior year.

I did not graduate summa cum laude or get chosen for Mortar Board or win any great honors during my time at Tech. Even worse, I did not leave with an engagement ring or even a fraternity pin, the true mark of success in that era. My one claim to fame transpired due to a chance happening. One of my fellow journalists, a photographer, had a photo assignment concerning a feature for autumn. He asked me if I’d mind going out to McKenzie Park and let him take a few photos in the colorful falling leaves.

They turned out just as he hoped, and he was pleased as punch that they were picked up by the Associated Press Wirephoto Service. So there I was, looking pensive and covered with fall leaves, in the Houston Post, the Dallas Morning-News and, of course, the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal and lots