Beginning His Teaching Career

Salary Notice - August 25, 1948

Pre-Graduate Teaching Permit, 1948

When the school year began in September 1948, I taught physical education at Minnequa Elementary School in District #60 under Julia Braun, principal. My salary notice from the district dated 25 August 1948 reports that I would be paid $2,000 for the school year! I also received my Colorado State Pre-graduate Permit for teaching in any elementary public school in the state of Colorado. It was valid for one year only. In November I helped with conditioning basketball players at Pueblo Junior College and decided that I didn’t want to coach, but preferred to teach elementary school.

6th grade class at Minnequa -- Spring 1951

At the end of February 1951 I was discharged (from the Navy for the second time) and sent home. I went to the school district, as they had told me I had a job when I got back. I was supposed to have started teaching 3rd grade in September, 1951, so, I was put on as a permanent substitute until there was a job available. I substituted mainly in the old building east of Pueblo on Highway 96 at the Belle Plain School, which the district had taken over from a small school district. That assignment lasted for a few weeks until a 6th grade assignment opened up when Glen Filer, 6th grade teacher at Minnequa School, was drafted into the Army and I was given his position. I taught this class to finish up the school year. It was a pretty good class, and I knew most of the kids from my days of teaching Physical Education and student teaching previously. I still had a couple of classes and a summer’s work plus one more class before I got my BA in Elementary Education the following December. So in addition to my teaching, I was also taking classes by correspondence.

3rd Grade class - Fall 1951

I taught 3rd grade at Minnequa for the next two years. About half of the class lived in the Minnequa area, and the other half was bussed in from Salt Creek, which was a Mexican community, very poor for the most part, and the housing was very sub-standard. We had some neat kids from this area, but many were at a severe handicap because of the language in most cases.

As we all know, Dad had a long and rewarding career in elementary education which provided personal satisfaction as well as a comfortable retirement. He had many stories to tell about students as well as fellow teachers. Those that he recorded will be posted here in the future.