Did anyone else teach sophomore biology at Rogers other than Mr. Sabo? I don't think so, and if anyone did, those who didn't have Mr. Sabo missed a Rogers experience (Ed: Mr. Lawrence Coleman also taught biology). I'm not at all surprised to learn that he lived to age 93. He was a tough, crusty guy, at least in his style, but we all knew he seemed to like us. Why anyone would like sophomores is curious. And why any science department head would teach underclassmen is even more curious--downright strange. Department heads usually take the elite classes, for seniors and the classes that don't get a lot of goof-offs. Biology classes for sophomores can be a goof-off's playground.
According to the faculty page information in The Treasure Chest, Lewis Sabo had been at Rogers since 1945. My guess is he went there after getting out of the Army, maybe Marines. He looked like a tough Army or Marine sergeant, the kind of noncom who loved his men but dared not really show it. Remember how he would toss a chalkboard eraser at anyone talking when he was trying to impart some biological information? He was always on target, at least hitting the table of the offender. It was quite a toss because his classroom was a lab- type, larger than most. A teacher mantra is, "There's no such thing as a stupid question." Well, if you asked a stupid question, Sabo let you know it. I'll never forget a classmate who asked him, while on a grasshopper hunt, looking for specimens one early fall semester day, if we were going to study snowflakes. "Snowflakes! Biology is about living things. What's living about a snowflake?" he yelled, making the poor kid wish he could hop away into the tall grass to hide.
His classes were almost an introduction to a college class environment. He stuck to the topic, took it seriously, was on a mission to make sure we learned biology. I can still picture him, behind his lab bench in the front of the room, talking, in a high, somewhat raspy volume, about something biological. If he wasn't a sergeant in the Army, he acted like one. I knew lots of sergeants in my 17 years of Army affiliation, and there just had to be, during WWII, a Sergeant First Class Lewis Sabo, probably a "Top" sergeant of a company.
I hated science, but I liked biology, and I liked Sabo. I think we all respected him, but we still just called him "Sabo". Not to his face, but in the way we would talk about a friend. He did have that certain student-teacher rapport that is so important in the education business.
I never knew it, but reading about him in The Treasure Chest, I noticed he attended Washington State College. That would make him a Cougar. You don't have to graduate from WSC/WSU to be a Coug--a semester is all it takes, and "once a Coug, always a Coug," as the buttons say. That makes him a fellow alumnus for me.
It seems fitting, somehow, that a biology teacher would live to be 93. He probably knew what was really healthy for human life, probably ate lots of grains, fruits and vegetables, getting his amino acids. I can't imagine him eating a banana split--the banana, maybe, but not the ice cream and goopy sauce.
Shortly before another of my favorite teachers passed away, the immortal La Senora Pence, I wrote a tribute to her, mentioning she probably had moved on to the "classroom in the sky". I didn't realize at the time that she was still alive. Sabo, and deserving of full honor, "Mr. Lewis Sabo," has earned admittance to the Classroom, too. From my own teaching years, I know a roomful of teachers can be more talkative and louder than a classroom full of kids. If there is such a place as a Classroom in the Sky for honored, special, departed teachers, Mr. Sabo will certainly bring it to order--with a quick, accurate toss of a chalkboard eraser--and right through the center of the halo, right on target.
What a teacher! He not only taught the science class of life very well, he made life in a science class, at least for this former student, not only informative but made my daily hour of life in his classroom "really neat." To be "really neat" in those days at Rogers was the ultimate compliment.
Lewis Sabo. Whatta teacher! Whatta guy!
Wyatt Newman