I started at Santa Rosa Junior High in the eight grade. I remember Mrs. Bullock darting around the room diagraming sentences. I had never done that in Eureka and then there was the advanced math class where we did Simple math with a twist, different bases.... Then math operations in Roman numerals, and all the other weird math we learned. I loved Math but it was just strange, actually I have used base 2 with computers. I remember that year being in the band and marching in the Rose Parade. It was HOT in those heavy blue coats and I think that was one of the reasons I dropped band and took sewing in the ninth grade. Loved that class and have used the skills I learned all my life. Also loved being in Mrs. Kings dance class, no PE, just dance and  it was much better.

This forum is for all of you out there who went to SRJHS. Go Cougars!!

Thanks for starting this thread Linda.

I started at SRJHS two-months into the seventh grade.  For me, this was a real culture shock compared to San Francisco city schools.  At first blush, the male "dress-code" in SR, i.e., pegged Levis, Pendleton shirts, and long-held friendships seemed to identify the social hierarchy.  In SF, however, the "pecking order" and alliances seemed more associated with intimidators versus those who were intimidated.  Usually, being a member of the latter group, I quickly embraced my new environment and the friends I was able to acquire in a relatively short time, many of whom remained friends through high school.  

Some of the teachers like Mr. Dowdle (9th-grade English), Mr. Blake (8th-grade English), Mr. Calahan (7th-grade English), Mr. Beal (8th-grade Math), Mrs. Blackman (7th-grade Soc. Studies), Mr. Christiansen (9th-grade World History), and Mr. Hargrave (9th-grade Algebra) had a profound effect upon me, both positive and negative.

There are so many directions I could venture with this topic.  I look forward to reading and interacting with responses of others. 

Wow Linda, you lived in Eureka??  So did I!  Was born there; went to Franklin Elementary.  We moved to Santa Rosa when I was 10 and in the 6th grade (young since I skipped the first grade).  Because of where we lived, I went to Village Elementary.  That summer, we moved to Mendocino Avenue, so in the fall I went to SRJC.  Of course, I knew exactly nobody.  Fortunately, we never moved again. 

Glenn, 

I was born in Eureka and went to Grant Elementary and in 7th to George C Jacobs Junior High.

I went to SRJH straight through, and when reading a couple of the above posts, memories are starting to come back.  My first was of Mr. Blake (English & home room in 7th grade I believe).  He was from Turkey if my memory serves, and he LOVED English and how it could allow the reader to be "taken away".  He used to read Edger Allen Poe (i.e. "The Tell-Tale Heart") and other authors to us ... with emotion that kept me intensely interested. I also remember stories like "Two Bottles of Relish" & "Leiningen vs. the Ants".  Then, there was the other time, when we were suppose to be writing our own story in our notebook, and after I had turned it in to be graded, he discovered the drawing of a motor scooter that I had made inside the back fly, and he made a comment on it that "I could probably do better on my stories if I didn't spend my time drawing".

Other memories are of our metal shop teacher Mr. Malchow and of course the irreplaecable woodshop teacher, Raul Diez.  He had been a boxer and graduated from Stanford, and had a unique blend of "savvy & professionalism", but in retrospect, I believe he CLEARLY cared for his students and their growth and maturity BEYOND just wood working skills.  He use to take a few minutes at the end of the hour and tell stories that hopefully students "got the point of" and perhaps applied in their personal lives.

That's enough for now ... somebody else needs to carry the ball ... then maybe I'll grab it again later.

Mark Gilbert

Mark, those are great recollections of Mr. Blake and Mr. Diez.  Mr. Blake was my (memorable) English instructor in 8th-grade.  Unfortunately, I was a disruptive a$$ in his class.  Along with Robert Cole, we sat in the back of the class and created one distraction after another.  That was the first and only class where I was assigned to sit out in the hall on more than one occasion.  I remember, one day Mr. Blake had covered one of the blackboards left-to-right, top-to-bottom with the repetitive word "had" (I don't remember how many).  He then proceeded to interject punctuation to show how the repetitious use of a single word can be a complete sentence. 

As to Mr. Diez, he was "Mr. Cool".  I was in his 9th-grade woodshop class, and I wanted to be "Mr. Carpentry", but I had absolutely no artistic eye and very mediocre talent with sharp tools.  Mr. Diez pretty much summed it up when he generously wrote in my Cougar Yearbook, "Some good work".   For some reason, I remember and associate you in that class with the construction of a gun-rack, also Ken Bronsert with the creation of a Fender-style guitar, and Greg Clatt creating a mahogany table, stained black with white filler.  Do you recall how many sling-shots and laminated boomerangs were created in Mr. Diez's classes?  They were almost a right of passage.  

Thanks Mike for your reflections, and I don't know about Ken making one, but I made an "electric" (note the quotes, cause I never got it electrified) guitar ... following some plans I got out of Popular Mechanics I think.  The following year (or maybe later), Robert Huntington's younger brother Greg DID make one that he played in a band for many years.  It was red metal flake.  My other projects included a HEAVY paddleboard that was built like a boat with ribs etc. that when I was on it up at the Russian River, hardly kept me above the water's surface.  Did you ever go over to Mr. Diez's house and see the BEAUTIFUL mahagany boat that HE built?  He LOVED to go steelhead fishing!

Re. woodshop projects, I remember that a lot of guys (sorry, but ladies apparently weren't welcome back then) made laminated fishing landing nets and hockey sticks.  On occasion Mr. Diez would test out the hockey sticks using the "pucks" which were the slugs of dried left over brown resin glue used to make the nets or sticks.  Those "pucks" could REALLY FLY around the shop with it's floors lightly covered in sawdust.

I just remembered one more project:  my Chinese Checker board.  It is made from black walnut, with a star pattern, and the “home triangles” are inlaid white ash.  To make the lines for you to follow when playing the game, I routed ~1/8” wide grooves and inlaid ash in the walnut and walnut in the ash.  The only problem was that there were no 1/8” diameter router bits available, so Mr. Diez took some 1/8” steel and ground it square … which SORT OF made sharp edges … BUT, in the hard walnut, I couldn’t route more than one or two lines before these edges got dull, and things started to SMOKE.  I got the nickname “Burning Barney” … but I finished the project and have attached a picture I just snapped.

I remember something about Mr. Diez having a so-called "Macaluchi stick" (sp?) that he would (lightly) use for discipline ... but need some help re. my memory of this.

Take care,

Mark

Mike, you have an INCREDIBLE memory to be able to remember the gun rack I made, which hung over my bed until I went away to college … and had totally forgotten about until you mentioned.  I don’t know what happened to it … probably donated it to Goodwill.  It was made of knotty pine, and I’ve created a CAD model of what I think it looked like and attached a picture of the model.  Have you ever considered of going on Jeopardy?  With your memory you would certainly win!  See you at the reunion.  Mark

Mark, your illustration of the gun-rack is exactly as I remember it (in knotty-pine).  On most occasions, my memory serves me pretty well, except when I forget where I left my car keys.