John R. Rogers

Paul MacGowan - An Uncommon Vice Principal

Current school operations learned from my teaching experience is that one of the vice principals is in charge of student discipline, an assignment that must be one of the most stressful jobs in the education business and usually guarantees that that VP would be the most unpopular staff member on the staff, from the students' point-of-view.

Rogers had a good system, unlike any I knew of in my post-Rogers educational life. John Jelinek, the flattopped Dean of Boys, had a cheerful manner about him, so much so that I observed him one day accost a brazen youth who came back from the Pirate, still puffing his cigarette as he strode down the front hallway. As I stood there, most likely with my mouth hanging open as I stared at the violator, Mr. Jelinek approached the lad, emerging from his office and calmly put his hand on the felon's arm and escorted him into his office. Quick and smooth.

Vice Principal Paul MacGowan, whose 1950s short-cropped hairstyle didn't have that same, popular flattop, more of the rounded GI style or butch, didn't deal with the toughies, or "rods" as they were sometimes called.

He had several duties, according to the wording by his photo in the Treasure Chest. Among them was advising student activities, which included student government.

You remember student government, an activity designed for those who "wanted to make this a better school," or "wanted to get everyone involved," or maybe just wanted to hold office for who knows why. Student government wasn't usually important to anyone but that handful of students who involved themselves in it. I was one of that group that is often placed by our peers as being in the nerdy category.

Nevertheless, I must say that having Paul MacGowan as our advisor was educational, at least for a teacher-to-be in the not-too-distant future. It's often said that student government is nothing but a group of puppets controlled by the administration. Not so at least not so at Rogers with Paul MacGowan. Mr. MacGowan gave advice only when needed or asked. He never set any agenda, vetoed anything that I recall. In fact, I remember only a few conversations with him. He was always respectful, never talked down to me. Friendly, very friendly. Reassuring. Helpful. Must have been a good dad if he treated his own kids like he treated us. I was the kind of kid that never felt really comfortable with teachers, and principal types were almost unapproachable, but not Mr. MacGowan. In short, he was a good educator in what he was assigned to do. He left us alone to learn how to get through the business handed to us or that we created.

I served as a student government/activities director for a period in my own teaching life. I adopted the Paul MacGowan model to LET THE KIDS DO IT THEMSELVES, or student government would be nothing more than what it was perceived to be, a mockery.

- Wyatt Newman

Mr. Joe Raymond

I had three math teachers during my Rogers voyage. The first was not-so-hot, continually digressing to many subjects outside of math while browbeating the class. I've written about the quiet professionalism of Mr. Alfred Ostness, my second math teacher. I spent my junior and senior years of mathematics training with Mr. Raymond, who balanced a bit of talk about outside matters with a heavy schedule of trigonometry and advanced mathematics that he made almost fun.

Mr. Raymond's classroom was the extreme third-floor right-most room as you look at Rogers from the sidewalk. Room 302 is not exactly there anymore. Walls have moved.  A bunch of us attended two years of Mr. Raymond's classes in that room. We had the old antique schoolhouse desks in that classroom. I remember where I sat. I can see the room around me in my mind's eye. I sat second seat, center, behind future valedictorian Dick Mather.  Both of our Jim Whites (James B. and James D.) sat midway down the right-most row, in front of  David Van Hoy. David Cogley and Bob Parry were in that room somewhere, but I cannot see them in my minds eye at the moment.

Mr. Raymond did digress a bit, but always covered the material so that we learned it. He was an assistant football coach at Rogers. He was from Montana and attended Gonzaga, at least for his masters degree in mathematics.  (Gonzaga washed out of the NCAA Basketball tournament this week of 3/22/2004. Shucks.) We heard a lot of stories about his younger years.

Once he told us about a mining strike in Montana. He said such things were serious there. He talked about a couch being thrown through a living room window. His story was so colorful I could see it.

Another time he talked about abstract concepts of math and how some ordinary things were abstract to some people. He related a story of his blind roommate at Gonzaga.

"That's a nice red sweater you have on today, Bob."

The blind roommate's response was, "Thank you, Joe. What's red?"

At this point, Mr. Raymond's eyes would become saucers. That was his way of saying, "How would you explain this abstract concept? Think about it."

Mr. Raymond maintained discipline with "hacks." He had a fraternity paddle and used it in mostly good humor. Sometimes he would wind up, swing, and stop short, saying, "Are you ready?" Once, I pushed him too far and got to experience a hack. He smiled and said, "Mauget, come up here." It really hurt. He wasn't pulling any punches. One time somebody really got to Mr. Raymond. When he asked the person to come up front, he wasn't smiling. That one must have really hurt.

There were some in the class that didn't like Mr. Raymond's brand of discipline and speak unfavorably of it to this day. One thing is certain, it would not be allowed today.

Mr. Raymond spoke in Montana vernacular. Some of us were interested in calculus. He liked to say that actually working a calculus problem was not hard, but that "It's settin' 'er up that's hard." Vocabulary was not his forte. He tended toward malapropisms if he was not careful. He knew this and poked fun at himself.

Once he told us about being in the service commanding a tactical exercise. He told us he gave the order, "Men, circumcise your watches." He said you could not hear anything but laughter for two minutes.

I went on to major in physics in college. This required applied math, never one of my strong points. The foundation laid by Mr. Ostness and Mr. Raymond helped me complete the major. Today I work in the field of information science that didn't exist then. The foundation in math, given me by those two men, helps me when it's time to "set 'er up."

Mr. Raymond died of cancer a few years ago.

-Ed Mauget