LAURENCE R. DANIELSON. Born 1930.

TRANSCRIPT of OH 1974

This interview was recorded on July 7, 2014, for the Maria Rogers Oral History Program. The interviewer is Luke Lorenz. The interview was transcribed by John Dungan.

ABSTRACT: Larry Danielson worked at Fairview High School from its beginnings in the 1960s through several decades—first as a guidance counselor, and later as assistant principal. He describes and reflects on development of the City of Boulder particularly as it affected the schools, the consolidation of small school districts into the Boulder Valley School District, and many aspects of education at Fairview, including the architecture of the school, changes in education styles and theories over the years, the culture of the 1970s, the football program, and the administrative approaches of various principals and superintendents. While not specifically mentioned in this interview, Larry’s history also includes transport on the ship Zam Zam, which was sunk by a German warship. A two-part interview with the Daily Camera details that event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zgewEEWiYE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edEuoiOCJTs

Keywords: 1970s Boulder Valley high schools (Fairview, Boulder, Centaurus, Monarch) Boulder Valley School District City of Boulder development education innovation Fairview High School roof collapse guidance counselors high school football hippies IBM open classrooms school administrators school district consolidation student discipline Table Mesa neighborhood

NOTE: Speakers are identified by initials placed at the start of each person’s questions/responses. Added information appears in brackets.

[A].

00:00 Luke Lorenz: Today is Monday, July 7th, 2014, and my name is Luke Lorenz. I’m interviewing Larry Danielson, who’s a retired Boulder Valley School District administrator working many

1 years at Fairview High School. This interview is being recorded for the Maria Rogers Oral History Program. And to start the interview, Larry would you tell us when and where you were born?

Laurence Danielson: I was born in 1930, and I was born in east Africa, Tanzania. My parents were missionaries there for about 40 years. I spent my first 11 years in Africa, coming back to the States when I was four years old and when I was nine years old. My mother homeschooled me in Africa. Came to the States, and they put me in 4th grade because it was my age level. And then they gave me some tests, and they found out that I learned more from my mother than probably the other kids did. So they moved me up a grade. So all of the rest my life I was one year ahead of my age.

I went to grade school and then to high school in Williamsburg, Kansas, and went to Bethany College there. During the Korean War, I had—I went in through the army for a few months, and then I had a GI Bill. And because of the GI Bill I was able to go on—I never planned to go on after college—but I went on and got a masters in the University of Colorado.

And while coming out here, I lived in the barracks area and lived across the courtyard there from a fellow who was later selected as the principal of Fairview High School. And then I was offered a job. I was on the first group that went to Fairview. In 1960, we formed the—that summer we worked on curriculum and things like that. Fairview High School opened up with four grades and 180 kids.

02:18 LL: What year did you come to Boulder, Larry, what your first—?

LD: My first coming to Boulder was 1964. I spent four summers here and I got a masters, and after getting a masters, I was back in Kansas. For a job I worked at a wheat elevator, helping move grains and stuff. It was hot and sticky and terrible. And I figured, well, I get a $160 a month from the GI Bill, I could be out in Colorado rather than going to school. So I came back here and went to school some more. And I end up getting up what they call the—it wasn’t a doctorate degree—but it was EDS, which is everything except a dissertation for a doctorate.

LL: And what attracted you to the University of Colorado? What was the—

LD: The reason was I wanted—I thought Colorado would be an interesting place to go to school. And I was thinking to Greeley, but I had a high school superintendent who was a friend of the family and he—I talked to him a little bit, and he said, “Well, if your are going to Colorado, why don’t you go to University of Colorado?” He said, “Hal [?] Douglas is out there. He’s the head of School of Education and he’s a really good person. And you should go out there and study from Hal Douglas.”

LL: How did he happen know him, do you [crosstalk]?

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LD: He was a North Central committee, this type of thing. He was fairly active in that. He was a [from?] a little town in Kansas. It was a very small school, but ___ was active in the North Central, and he did evaluations and things like that.

04:00

LL: Now what were your first impressions of Boulder, can you remember the first time you drove into town?

LD: The very first time, they just built the turnpike, and we came over the hill and saw Boulder sitting down there. Of course, at that time there were not many—the whole south Boulder was just kind of an open plain, but you did see the university, and it was just a different setting. But I remember our first week here, we came from Kansas and thought it would be nice to be in Colorado where it is cool, and that first week it got up to 102, I think it was. And that summer, I think it was three or four other days over 100 degrees, which is very unusual. But we had friends who lived in Emporia State College, in Emporia, Kansas, and they had temperatures of 112, 115 for several days. That’s in ’54, which was a very hot summer.

LL: So you weren’t expecting that. [cross talk] by the mountains.

LD: But one thing we could do. Any night we wanted to, and Boulder Canyon was still very nice. They had these picnic places, and it wasn’t trashed like it’s been later on. And we’d just get in the car and go for 5 minutes up to the canyon, and it would be nice and cool. Eat or watch the water. Now I’ve often thought if I could take one square mile of that and put it back in the center of Kansas, I could charge admissions and make a fortune.

05:24

LL: (laughs) Now where did you, where was your first residence, was that in the metal huts or barracks or—?

LD: Yeah, in the summer time we were in the—we spent four summers here—and we were in the barracks two summers, and then we were in the Quonset huts—not Quonset huts but the—

LL: Metal huts—

LD: —yeah, huts.

LL: Where were they located?

LD: The ones we were in were north of—north of Arapahoe. It’s actually where later on they put a car dealership in there, Rust Lines [?] had—and now they have, I can't remember—four-story or a three-story building in the south side, I can't remember what it was, but they planted a lot of trees, they built up yards and all those big trees down in the area—cottonwoods and so forth, were growing at that time. And McGuckin’s was just getting started, they were a little store on Arapahoe, one booth, or I mean, one, um, [pause] just one store—retail and—

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06:45

LL: Any other places, MuGuckin’s, which were just getting started [cross talk]—?

LD: And then the first—Bob Charles—well his parents—or his mother—owned, a McDonalds. And they put the first McDonalds on 28th street. Bob Charles took over that McDonalds, and of course, he developed it into an empire of about ten McDonalds all around.

One of the things I had in ___[?] high school they had a youth events committee or something. We met, and I was representative of Fairview, and we had Bob—Bill—Arnold and we had two, three other people on there that—a banker and others that—it was an interesting experience.

LL: And Bill Arnold at that time was the owner of—?

LD: Arnold Ford. And he had, well had the Ford dealership, which was on Canyon—later moved out east.

LL: So, who was the person you mentioned that you got to know that you lived as a neighbor to the person who then become the principal at Fairview High School.

LD: Right. It was Jerry Ellison was his name. He was principal a couple of years there. And he had, he was working, he had worked down at Denver, in the attendance office or something down there. And, ah, Nevin Platt [see MROHP interview OH0345, recorded in 1978] hired him, and he had Jerry—not Jerry, but, um, trying to think of his name—it what was the middle school or the junior high principal out there.

08:41

LL: And so at time Fairview was a separate school district and you say the high school was four, four different grades—had about 180 students?

LD: Well they had 480.

LL: 480 students.

LD: Yeah, the freshman class was 180, in that class. And up until that time, all the kids were going to Boulder High School. South Boulder got going, got a lot of kids, and Boulder High School was full, and they told Fairview that they needed to get their own school and get out of the Boulder High District.

LL: So it was a separate school district. Did they contract for services then?

LD: Yeah, Fairview contracted for services and ended when Fairview, when the building was built, 1960. And after, one year after the building was built, and they were in negotiations, trying to consolidate the districts, and they ended up with Boulder County being two school districts—

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St. Vrain being the north and Boulder Valley being the south. And when Boulder Valley—there was two, three elections for a couple of disputes, because Broomfield was part of it, and they thought maybe they should be on their own. But they had no tax base to support schools. So it was a lot better for the kids and all that Broomfield be part of the Boulder Valley School District.

10:05

LL: And that time Broomfield was still a part of Boulder County so it seemed to fit into—

LD: It fit in, right. And Broomfield wasn’t that large. They built Broomfield High School with probably 700 kids or something like that.

LL: So what were disputes other than the fact that, ah, Broomfield wanted to be separate but then decided it would be best for them to stay?

LD: It was probably just a—territorial, because Broomfield always been—every time Boulder Valley had a bond election, Broomfield has voted against it. They just seemed to be, not, didn’t want to be a part of Boulder. Part of it is probably political, because Broomfield has always been conservative and Boulder has been quite liberal in their political outlook.

LL: Uh-huh. And so even back then—and that would have been early ‘60s—’61?

LD: Early ‘60s, yeah.

LL: So that you—already there was kind of a rift there between the two?

LD: That’s true.

LL: And so, were there some prime movers, people that you remember names of that really pushed for this or how did—what was the motivation behind it?

LD: Well I think that—well first they joined the district, and I think they, Nevin Platt was the Superintendent of Boulder Schools. He was for it, not ____[?]—back up; Nevin Platt was the Superintendent of the Fairview District. And Nat Burbank was the Superintendent.

LL And were they behind it then? Did they agree that it was better?

LD: They agreed. And they got together, and it was interesting that a year after—as soon as the new district was formed, the central leadership of the Boulder Valley Schools was—Nat Burbank was the Superintendent, Nevin Platt was assistant, Angevine from—who was Superintendent of Layette was one of the assistants, Bennington who was superintendent down at Broomfield was also one of the assistants, and they all kind of merged into leadership positions of the new Boulder Valley Schools.

LL: How did that work from your point of view? Did they blend well or were there some differences?

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LD: They’d blend pretty well. But—

LL: Can you remember any issues that needed some working through?

LD: No I don’t. Of course, Nederland too was part of it. But, of course, they were very small compared to everybody else. Big issues were trying to decide on a curriculum and they had, Gene Gillette was the assistant superintendent. He’d been the assistant to Boulder, original Boulder School District. And he ran curriculum committees. At each school, each area had one or two people, and I was on from the very, very— representing counseling I think. We met once a month and decided on curriculum, and kind of merging it in, and taking a vote on which new subjects would be allowed in the Boulder Valley Schools, and which ones should wait. And at that time, the growth was growing so fast that a lot of things were accepted just because it was part of the growth.

LL: And what was the cause for the growth in Boulder Valley School District at that time? What parts were growing faster than others?

LD: Ah, the South Boulder—south of Baseline—was growing, starting about 1956 or something like that. We’d come out here to summer school, every summer—I noticed on Martin Acres it would be another two or three blocks further out. And the same way it was growing in Denver, you’d come up, and the Westminster area would be two, three more blocks of houses.

LL: And what—was there an industry, or a business, or some institution that came into town or that—?

LD: Probably the biggest one was the University of Colorado. And then in—I can't remember when it was, [trying to figure out the date] ’60—’52—6—so you had—the Bureau of Standards here. They had a dedication, and I think Eisenhower came out for the dedication. [clarification: the dedication of the National Bureau of Standards building was in 1954] And that grew quite a bit. And a lot of people came to work for the Bureau, because that was a good job.

15:09 LL: And of course that was located south of Arapahoe, or south of Table Mesa actually, so that would probably prompt a lot of growth in that area. [clarification, the NBS building was located on Broadway, south of Baseline and north of Table Mesa]

LD: There some growth in North Boulder too but most of it was in South Boulder ,and they had big developers. I know Hugh Phillips built almost all of this Table Mesa area. These blocks that we live in, he was the developer for that.

LL: Did you buy this house as new house?

LD: Yeah, we bought it as a new house. In fact, we were looking for a new house when our youngest daughter was born. We lived in—north of Baseline. And with—we needed a little more space. So I came out here and started looking at these houses, and they had a house across the

6 street—a show house—somebody built a basement under it, and I thought that was a really good deal. I went back in May or June, and they said, well we came out with a new model called, the Oklahoma. It was a bi-level. It was the same westerner[?], but one story higher. And that is what we ended up with. Actually three blocks, three houses north of us, Hugh Phillips himself moved in one of those houses. Lived there for about five years before he moved on to other places.

LL: And what year did you move into this house?

LD: I moved into this house in 1964, November. So it will be ten years now—I mean 50 years.

LL: I see. And what was—this is right west of South Boulder Rec Center near Viele Lake. What was it like out here, at that time?

LD: At that time, where Viele Lake—where the Rec Center—was they had a baseball field. They had developed the city and Viele Lake was—they were starting re-develop it, shape it and put the—there’s a pathway—and make two ponds to it, all at that time. And then they developed a park across the street. When they did that, they went through the neighborhood here. And they had trees—they—buy half a tree—they’re about a tenth of the trees in the park. They asked people for donations—you buy half a tree for $9 and a whole tree for $18. We bought one of those little ___. Now for fifty years we looked over there and said, “Well, that was our tree.”

LL: Oh, was it a specific tree that was yours?

LD: Yeah.

LL: And is it still there?

LD: It’s still there. It’s had a little wear, but it’s still there.

LL: What kind of people moved out to South Boulder during that period of time?

LD: Well, at the same time, about ’54—[corrects himself] or ’64, 1964—IBM moved in their manufacturing, their big—they started their plant in—by ’67, I think it was—they had the plant built. But we had a lot of people. Fairfield High School grew so much. In two, three years there, we grew from 400 and something to over a thousand students. And we had registrations from, most of them from New York. IBM headquarters, they moved all these people. We had a lot of students coming in as New York students.

LL: How—how was the adjustment there with that rapid of growth? Were there inherent problems just because of the volume students?

LD: Well, it seemed the people too, were much more agreeable. I know in South Boulder, our daughter went to, in seven years she went to six different schools. We moved one time. We lived on 37th street and they sent her out to, actually it was, out there was Arapahoe. Then she went to Burke, and then she went to Martin Park, Mesa, Southern Hills. But people didn't—district just

7 assigned—Dave Jansen[?] had that job—dividing up. When we lived, original place there, one block, the kids on the block were assigned to three different schools, because they came in and they just were assigned. The parents weren’t like they are today were they had a hard time trying to decide on some place. But they just accepted were they were assigned.

19:50

LL: And thankful they were bused and agreed with it and there was no controversy about it.

LD: Not much of controversy at all.

LL: How about your daughter’s parents? Did they think that was all right? Did you think that was okay for her to be in so many schools or were you—?

LD: Well, about the time she came along, we had moved here, and she only went two schools. She went to Paddock [Elementary School] and then they built, um, not Bear Creek, can’t think of it, on top of a hill there. Mesa—

LL: Mesa.

LD: Mesa School, yeah. She ended up there. And our youngest daughter went to—went to Mesa because she was assigned there. But then the principal, John Dury [?] moved to a new school there, at Bear Creek and took two or three of the teachers with him. So we had to ask if she could transfer, because she liked the teachers, so she transferred. And that kind of school was an open school, so she the kind of student that did well in an open school, because it didn’t bother her with the other kids and all the confusion, because she was very task oriented.

LL: Describe what happen there at the new school, and what was your impression of why did they feel—describe an open school, open elementary school, and what it looked like.

LD: Okay. Actually, open elementary was, same thing happened at Fairview High School when they opened up the new high school, is that much of that was open. We had the classrooms, five or six in a row with just little dividers between them. And I think it was the philosophy at the time that a lot of schools were built that way. I know I went out and visited, when they opened up the Niwot High School, it was the same type. But Fairview had—built for 1800 students and we moved in from—we were out at the Platt building, we were there nine years. And the last year we were there—last three years—we were on double sessions. We’d started at seven in the morning and went to six at night and half the—most of the kids went in the morning and then mostly sophomores did the second shift in the afternoon. And when we scheduled them, we had to, worry about activities and athletics.

LL: So that was a result, it wasn’t by design—it was by default—because of the large number of students and the only way you could accommodate that number.

LD: Right.

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LL: Did that create some, ah, discussion? Who made that decision, the superintendent? And who was the superintendent at that time?

LD: The superintendent at that time was, um [pause]—I’m blocking on the names or—

LL: Was it still Burbank?

LD: No. Burbank and—he passed. Nevin Platt and Burbank, they had new superintendents. Um, I can see his face, but I can’t remember.

LL: Yeah, that’s ok. That’s ok. But was he the motiving force behind having two sessions?

LD: Well, the two sessions, we decided at Fairview because we just—we had these kids, and we had to do something with them. And it worked out that we could design the program. And I spent about 30 years at Fairview, doing all the registration, doing—designing actually—when classes would meet and this type of thing. But, during the ‘70s, we had a college type schedule, which kids would go to school, in class three days a week, and then the same rooms would be used for other classes—a double session—two days; so we could use the same classrooms for twice— almost twice—the number of kids.

LL: And were did you get that idea from or how did the community—

LD: We talked about it, and I don’t know—we visited a couple of schools, we visited Arapahoe High School in Justin County. And they had a schedule somewhat like that. And then we had meetings and—actually the ‘70s was a very, I think, a very interesting time for the schools, because a lot of things were going on. Fairview got permission to do a number of things from the school board then.

LL: What things were going on in the ‘70s, when you say a lot of things were going on?

LD: Okay, um, well partly it was some of the unrest with the Vietnam War and student—actually teachers, we had some teachers who were basically hippies and they’re allowed to do their thing in school.

25:10

LL: So the whole hippie thing, that was a part of Boulder in the early ‘70s.

LD: Right.

LL: And so you hired some of them because they had their—

LD: Well, they were hired and then they picked up—because the University was a strong influence on the high schools. And some of our teachers took the kind of lifestyle of the hippies.

LL: And what was that lifestyle? From your point of view.

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LD: Well they—the student dress changed a lot, teacher dress changed a lot. In the sixties, at Fairview High School, dress code was such that—like girls had to wear skirts all the way up to the mid-sixties, and they had to kneel on the floor and the skirt had to touch the floor. They couldn’t wear jeans or pants. And actually when basketball games, at that time it was very cold and their mothers would come to school dressed in jeans and all, but the girls still had to wear skirts. But they got it changed at—

LL: How did that transition take place? What was, what kind of—was that a school board policy or a building policy?

LD: I don’t—I think it was more of a school board but the building also enforced it. And Boulder High School, of course, being downtown, they had more—less control of their kids they could take off from campus anytime. Our first year we—Fairview was opened we had that closed campus and kids could not leave the building and things like that.

LL: That’s the one, the new, the building out—

LD: Out at Platt.

LD: Even at Platt it was a closed campus?

LD: A closed campus. And we take—every morning we had to check how many kids want to eat a school lunch. And Dave Jansen would come around and collect and turn the numbers in.

LL: At the high school, huh?

LD: At the high schools, uh-huh. He had to, I don’t think he’d checked all the schools but—

LL: What kind of guy was Dave Jansen?

LD: Oh he was a, he was a very interesting person, he was a fun person, but he could really play a role. He’d take kids in, and he set them down and talk to them. And go to their homes too, scare them back into school.

LL: Ah, of course, most people associate that hippie era with drug use. What was the element of drug use? Or how did you handle that particular problem with—at Fairview?

LD: Well, there wasn’t—alcohol was, of course, banned at schools and the drugs too. It wasn’t that prevalent, I don’t think, with the students. There was some, and I know, the early days at Fairview you had about three different groups. You had a cowboy group, a band group that did all this band stuff, and an academic group, and athletes—they’d have their own little clique. Particular in the new building—it was big enough that each part had a group of kids that kind of ran that part.

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LL: Of course, the new building had an interesting, ah, architectural design. And you mentioned that openness also. How did that, how did that all come about, and what was the motivation for that?

LD: Well Hobie [Hobart] Wagener was the architect. And he, I know we talked about, we had meetings, we talked about having this openness, because a lot of schools were having openness at that time. And Fairview did. But Hobie designed a school that had no ninety degree wall— corners. Everything was 60 or 30. And I know that, when new—the first week of school, bring teachers in and bring them around, and it takes them about four days to find out where they are in the building.

LL: I got to comment on that. I took a class the first year, because I taught at—worked at Southern Hills. And I had to have the room number for the first—like you say—the first four times, I couldn’t just intuitively get to it because I was there before. I had to look it up [laughs] on my list that this was the room number. It was a tough building to get to know. There is no doubt about that. What was the motivation behind doing that type of thing? No ninety-degree angles.

LD: I think it was just—well, the architect liked it and pushed it. The problem was some other schools they modeled after, and education at that time, nationally, this was a common thing—to have open classrooms and—actually Fairview, after about ten, twelve years, all our classrooms were enclosed.

30:37 LL: Yeah. It was—would you say it was a passing thing then?

LD: I think it was more passing that—a lot of students and teachers liked it. But it kind of favored the students’ abilities, because they could adjust and take advantage of it. And the kid who wanted to goof off, they could go over the corner. They get caught until it was too late and they’re in trouble.

LL: Now, how about smoking? That was always, to me, a big issue in the school district and students wanting to smoke, what was the policy and how did you handle that?

LD: Well, the policy was there was no smoking on school grounds. New Fairview was located on the hill. The school grounds went to the edge of the hill, so just over the hill there’d be always a whole bunch of kids smoking there. And actually in bad weather they kind of creep up through the school.

LL: Was that ever an issue of where administrators were put pressure on to enforce that more stringently or did it work pretty well?

LD: It worked pretty well. Administrators were supposed to go out, make rounds, and do that. And the kids usually then would quite smoking or did something ‘til you left the area. And another problem with the Fairview location was that we’re so close to the Viele Lake, there was the initiation of all the ninth graders—well, the tenth graders at time, because we only had a

11 three-year high school. Seniors would throw them in the lake and this was the problem—a safety issue and also—

LL: So how did you handle that? It was off school grounds. It was a city park.

LD: Right, right.

LL: Did you have to patrol down there?

LD: We went down there sometimes, and then also, the kids if they reported it when they got back to school, the upper class-men got in trouble. Some of the seniors took leadership position in blocking this. We had during the—probably still after that, but during the ‘70s they had a very strong student council, extremely strong. And it’s interesting today the number of the kids— leaders—in those student council classes. I noticed in the paper a couple of days ago that Hillary Hall, secretary of Boulder County [Boulder County Clerk and Recorder], she was talking about Josie Heath, said that she was over at her house and as a student she was active that time. We have people like Stan Garnett who’s—they always called him Uncle Stan, because he was so more mature than anybody else. And Mike Carrigan, who was the head of the regents at CU, was a class president. There was a half a dozen other Fairview leaders at that time.

LL: They took over—they were student leaders while they—

LD: They were student leaders, right, and they had strong leadership classes.

LL: How about the event, or one of the events that happened—let’s see, it must of been the earl—late ‘70s early ‘80s—right after Fairview wasn’t too many years old, the roof caved in and that seemed to be quite a notorious incident. What happened there?

LD: Well we had the—the roof was put on. And Hobie Wagener, of course, he got—they got sued, and there was a big issue for a long time. But we had a snow storm, and when they put the roof on, the bolts that fasten the roof to the center of the wall weren’t quite long enough. So they added about 4 inches to them, so they fit in.

And right at the same spot, on the north edge of the school, over the student center, they had— we had a snowstorm, and it had about 6 feet of snow pile right on top of that same area. And it was a Saturday morning—we were giving the ACT. I don't know why I went down. The roof down in the cafeteria was bowing. So we moved all the kids up to the other side of the school to take the test. And about an hour-and-a-half after the test started, we heard this big cracking. And I was down in the student center. And all of the roof came down. We had these dividers, lockers. So it came down and landed on top of the lockers. It was just like an explosion, because it was all the way down the hall, you could feel the air just popping.

Of course then we had to get the kids out of the building, come and send them home. I had to call ACT and say that our roof fell in, and what should we do? So they said, “Well, we can re- schedule the next week.” So we re-scheduled over at Southern Hills and used Southern Hills—

12 used all their classrooms and everything to give the ACT. I remember the kids, though, really complained. They said it wasn’t fair they had to take the test twice.

36:00

LL: Did they have to start from the very beginning?

LD: Yeah, they had to start all over again.

LL: Oh, they did.

LD: They did the whole thing again. It was about a two hour test, a two-and-a-half hour test.

LL: And what were the repercussions then? Was Fairview—was the structure closed for a time then?

LD: No. The building was closed. This happened in December. Actually, we were in the state playoffs for football, and the football team had gone in the locker rooms, and they got dressed and went down to the Boulder High field or to the field down there to play, and they couldn’t come back to the lockers afterwards, because that’s when the roof fell. And they had to send people in to get stuff out. We had—about two days later the school was open enough for the kids to get stuff out of their lockers, and we had a meeting—actually we met in Southern Hills for—I can’t remember what it was, three or four hours we had all the kids there and all the teachers were there. And teachers made assignments to the kids.

Then I spent all of Christmas vacation that year rescheduling all the classes from Fairview to the University of Colorado. It was harder because Fairview had classrooms—they held about 30-40 kids. Went to CU, and all the big buildings and all the big classrooms had maybe 100-200 kids in a room, so I had to use almost all the buildings on the campus. And rescheduled everybody up there. And luckily, at that time, CU had always had a winter break, so the month of January they had no kids. We used them—for 3 weeks used the entire campus. And then after 3 weeks we were allowed to get back into Fairview. Parts of the student center were boxed off for probably 2-3 months. Had to move around. But a lot of kids liked the experience of going up to CU, running around the campus and all that.

LL: Did they, were there inherent—what were the inherent problems of switching to a much larger campus like that as far as supervision of students and so on?

LD: Well, one thing, Fairview was fairly used to being—it was an open campus at Fairview so that kids could go run around if they want to go down—actually, Table Mesa shopping center was closest place. It was like Boulder High, where they could run downtown. But when they got up to CU, other than being in class, there was no restrictions. Took tests and watched the class. UMC was used as kind of a headquarters, the principal was there, the councilors were assigned rooms in the UMC, and then each group____. And one building on campus was the math classrooms, and another building was a science classroom. We used the music—band was over there in the auditorium. Phys-ed was over at the phys-ed facilities.

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39:28

LL: Do remember any of superintendents from that era, Larry?

LD: Well, we had, um—Paul Smith, was a superintendent and before him—I can’t—wasn’t it—I can’t remember the name of him.

LL: What kind of leadership style did Paul Smith have?

LD: He was more controlling than a lot of the superintendents. And—

LL: Was that difficult for the staff?

LD: Well, part of it was the staff. That’s when Fairview was expanding and doing different curriculum things and they got school board support, which gave Fairview almost [an] open check to do almost anything they wanted to.

LL: Who was on the school board at that time, do you recall?

LD: Yeah, um, Virginia Patterson, um Bierhouse [?].

LL: And they were supportive of this Fairview concept that was more open?

LD: Right. Uh-huh.

LL: Uh-huh. How about the parents? Did they support that? That their students weren’t as supervised as in some schools.

LD: Most the parents were. The other parents thought it was really bad, because we didn’t have control of the kids. One thing that helped as far as control of the kids was that Boulder High was completely open.

LL: So you had a parallel situation, so it wasn't one school was very tight and the other one was—

LD: That’s right.

LL: Who were some of the principals that you worked with at Fairview, Larry?

LD: Well, of course we had Jerry Ellison.

LL: And when you moved into the new building it was Keith?

LD: Keith Chambers, actually he was the, um—Tom Dorland [?] and Keith Chambers kind of switched roles there, but I—it was Tom Dorland when we did most of our things for about two

14 years there. And then we had—oh, can’t think of his name.

LL: After Keith.

LD: Before Keith, when we first went in there. He left Fairview, he had a limp.

LL: I don’t know him.

LD: He liked to do scholarly things, he like to—his office, he always read The Economist and things like that.

LL: (laughs) But it sounds as though the leadership at Fairview was somewhat innovated at that time.

LD: Yes it was. And they had a staff too at that time that proposed a lot of things we did.

LL: What were some of them that they—?

LD: Well, one of things that they pushed, pushed really hard was the idea that kids shouldn’t fail. If they did poorly, they just got no credit, but they didn’t get an F to knock down the rest of their grades. We started a new program, it lasted about a year or two, but we had number of teachers who didn’t like that. They didn’t hold with it, and it when it went away. And we did independent study—kids take—do contracts or something for independent study. Write a contract. That’s one of the things I was in charge of, I had kids do a lot of different things.

LL: Where that could be creative and get credit for it?

LD: Right. And they present a proposal. They got a faculty person to be their sponsor and supervise whatever they did depending on their field.

LL: And your job was to determine what content area it would fit into and what kind of credit you give them?

LD: Right, and talk with the teacher who really did the main work but kind of coordinate the stuff. I did a lot of coordination when I was at Fairview that—like I started out as counselor, and I was for about for 3 years, and I did—in Platt—I was assigned all sorts of the scheduling. It was a big job, and I suggested that why don’t they just make me the assistant principal, and then they could get another counselor. Which happened.

44:21

LL: So that was where you were—your role was officially as a councilor, but you thought it was quite involved with being an administrator.

LD: Right, uh-huh. Yeah I did—schedule all the teachers, all the kids.

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LL: What was the role of the counselors at that time? Where did they put most of their time and effort as far as working with students and staff?

LD: It varied a little bit with the individual counselors. Some were very championed for kids, and they get two or three kids as their favorite—not their favorite, but they put a lot, a lot of time in. Others spent the time kind of just checking grades and graduation credits and things like that. We had a probably a dozen, half dozen, really good counselors that worked a lot with kids.

LL: And what about the South Boulder community? They were supportive of the concept of experimenting with different educational styles?

LD: They seem to be. And the part of—the advantage too of the South Boulder community— most of them had moved into Boulder in the last five, eight years. A lot of them moved in from New York or someplace else just the year before. So the move was the big change, and then Fairview doing their thing wasn’t that—it was just part of it. But we did have a number of people who thought we should be much more restrictive and basic in our education.

LL: So you had to kind of meet the needs of all those parents, what they, their expectations were. Was that difficult to do or were you able to blend the different expectations and—[crosstalk].

LD: I think they blend pretty well.

LL: What about the rivalry between the Boulder and Fairview? You were involved with that from the very beginning. Did they look down at—when you were out at the old—what’s now the Platt building—I’ve heard there was kind of a condensing attitude by—

LD: Well, there was. The original Fairview kids were almost all farm kids. They called them the Fairview farmers. And a couple things happened out there. They—one time, they got into the school and turned loose probably 20 chickens all over the school.

LL: Boulder High students?

LD: Boulder High did. Boulder High School, at least twice, dumped manure on the front steps of the building.

LL: [laughs] Trying to emphasize, the farmer aspect.

LD: Right. And they did 2 or 3 other things that—the first 2 or 3 times we played them at football too, Fairview was a lot smaller. I think the first game was like about 45 to 6 or something like that. It was in ’67 or ’68, we played Boulder High and won the game. By that time the rivalry had gotten so big that we played the games at CU stadium.

LL: Football games?

LD: Yeah.

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LL: Oh, my!

LD: Which was kind of a neutral place. Then they moved them back to Rec Field. But we had a lot, a lot of people there for those games.

LL: And how was the student behavior during the games? Were you able to keep them apart or—?

LD: Yeah, they seem to be, I don’t remember any—of course we kept the kids on their side. At CU is was no problem, but at Boulder High or Rec Field every other year we trade sides because we’d be the home field. We’d get the stadium, and Boulder High had to sit over on the bleachers on the other side.

LL: How did they feel about that?

LD: They seemed to be all right.

LL: Hey, what transpired there that Fairview never got its own foot—well, they had a football field but never the seating or never any home games played at Fairview.

LD: As far as—Boulder district felt that they just needed one big field. They followed that philosophy later too, because at Centaurus [High School in Lafayette] they had a football field, but when Monarch came they didn’t get a field. And Broomfield had a field from the start. So rather than building a field with—they just merged the two together.

LL: And that went okay over with the South Boulder community to—?

LD: Yeah___. And then at that time, all around the state and Denver area, some many of the high schools—the big high schools now in Denver—play in—at same locations.

LL: So it was probably a matter of—financially—I suppose the lighting, perhaps was a—and seating, of course.

LD: Seating would be a problem. Lighting, of course, they had two, three times they had to redo lighting at Boulder High field because of—. And Longmont had one field, other places had one field around here.

LL: And they had rivalries—in basketball. They used to play the basketball games at old Balch [Fieldhouse, CU]—well, the present Balch track Fieldhouse, yeah.

LD: And that was a huge problem as far as being an administrator trying control the crowd there, because they hold about 4,000, and they’d have maybe more people than that. And trying to keep the two sides separated. So as administrators we had big duty every time they’d come in.

50:26

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LL: [laughs] I remember Fairview had a player, Tom Chambers, who played pro ball many years and Boulder High had another.

LD: ____.

LL: Yep, ____. Gosh, those were rivalries. My children were—boys were smaller in elementary school. And I almost feared for their physical safety taking them to those ballgames [laughs]

LD: Yeah we were thankful that—what was it? Nineteen-eighty, ’79—when they built Coors. And after that was built—no problem. And ever since then—now it’s been 30 years, 35 years— Boulder-Fairview games always been there, twice a year.

LL: Yeah. Where there any specific events that—oh, I wanted to ask you about the early ‘70s when they blocked the streets because of the Vietnam War and all the protests and so on. Did that affect Fairview? I don't image as much as Boulder High, but—.

LD: Not too much, because main blockage was up there on 28th Street and the overpass.

LL: But the Fairview students ever involved in any kinds of early ‘70s activities that seemed to—?

LD: They probably went to some of the things. There was nothing, um—I’m trying to think. We had two or three times that something was organized at school itself. I remember we had a big assembly on the Vietnam War and issues and things like that.

LL: With all the students—

LD: All the students there, yeah.

LL: —in a central location? And what was the content of that? Did people speak on—?

LD: People speak, and then there was a couple of books that came out about that time, but basically they were speaking about, um—I can’t remember both sides.

LL: But they presented both sides of the issue. Why we’re there, why we shouldn't be there.

LD: Why we shouldn’t be there, because there were a lot of people, a lot of people, probably rightfully so, thought we shouldn’t have been involved in that. And since then there have been two, three other wars.

LL: Yeah that’s true. Any other events that occurred at Fairview while you were there that you can remember were outstanding?

LD: Well, we raised money for Peace Corps schools, student council did. One thing, they raised money at the Platt building mostly, because every one had to be dressed up. On Friday, they

18 could wear any kind of clothes they wanted to, and they pay a $1 or something into a fund. It was kind of day for—dress down day—and then they had the concerts there too that raised money.

LL: What kind of concerts did they have?

LD: The music concerts they had—some of the bands, what was it? I think it was The Astronauts? Or Boulder had couple or three bands that were really outstanding at that time.

LL: They were local bands?

LD: Local bands.

LL: So you’d have an event, and student council would sponsor it [cross talk] fundraiser. And you say that went to funds or scholarships to the Peace Corps or something?

LD: There was a Peace Corps school—became a partnership with a school in South America. And we exchanged letters, and had pictures, and they did a bunch of things, mostly in the new building.

LL: Now, after Paul Smith, Pat Ryan became the superintendent. What kind of leadership style did he have?

LD: Well he was one of the best superintendents that we had—I feel..

LL: And what qualities?

LD: Well, he was a very people-oriented people person. He was easy to talk to, anybody—kids, staff, administrators—could talk with him. He had support of the school board for the first few years he was in. Because at the end of his term he was having some difficulties with them.

LL: He had the support when he initially came on?

LD: Yeah, when he first came on. And then for quite a few years.

LL: What transpired in that period of time where there was some dissension?

LD: Probably the change of the board and the community became more—we got past the open school—he was principal—ah, superintendent—for 13 years. We had—I have a t-shirt in there— our kids—at Fairview High School when they graduated in—what year was it? Anyway. They started the same year Pat Ryan did. So on their t-shirts they have all their names, and they have Pat Ryan’s name in the middle of it. Because, well, you know, he talked [at?] graduation too— starting with his class.

LL: Sure. Then they left and he left, he retired.

LD: He retired.

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LL: And then who came after—do you remember who—? That was, by any standards, that was a long time—

LD: That was a really long time.

LL: —yeah, to be a superintendent.

LD: And then we had two or three superintendents who were two or three-year or four years. There was a Washburn or someone from Michigan. Two or three others came in for a bit. They either left of their own desire or the pressure on them to leave.

LL: Was it a difficult job? I can see some problems with representing—geographically it is—.

LD: A very big area. And they had—it was a difficult job, and you had the schools, each school has their own—and particularly Fairview and Boulder High, since they got so big and had such a large parent base. And Broomfield had some but not as much. They were kind of out along, on the outside. Centaurus, um—can’t remember who was it—Centaurus, Lafayette, Louisville— must have been about ’71 or ’72 when they merged and became one high school. That caused a bunch of problems, because you had the ethic groups there; Hispanic and the Italians.

LL: And how did they resolve that?

LD: Well somewhat, a lot of those kids wanted to go to other places too; other schools. But then, later on, they built Monarch High School, which took most of Louisville’s students and Superior on the south side.

LL: And then Dean Damon was there, probably the next longest tenured.

LD: Yeah, he was, um, ‘90s I think it was.

LL: Right. And what kind of leadership style did he have?

LD: He, um [pause] my own reflections are it was a positive time he was there. He had a bunch of conflicts with different people but—

LL: Did the board support him?

LD: They did pretty well, at least at the beginning. And I can’t remember what, why he left.

LL: How about principals that you had? You you mentioned Tom Dorland.

LD: Tom Dorland and we had—.

LL: Keith Chambers.

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LD: Keith Chambers.

LL: What kind of leadership style did Tom Dorland have?

LD: He was—he did a lot of work where he developed a new school. And he involved people and stuff.

LL: How about Keith Chambers?

LD: He was pretty much in charge of stuff, but he also allow a lot of flexibility. And he was gone twice, I think. One year he was gone, Jim Williams was principal. He came back. Another year he was gone, um, Gene Hockenberry [?], I think, was the principal. And then after him, Bill Van Howe was there, kind of took over. And after Bill Van Howe, we had a number of principals that most of them didn’t work out very well.

LL: And what was Bill Van Howe—you know, he probably was there the longest.

LD: Oh yeah, totally. Because he came in as an English teacher in the early ‘70s. Then he was assistant principal for about five, six years and then he was principal—

60:03

LL: What was his leadership style, and what kinds of things did he promote?

LD: Well he was fairly supportive of the faculty, he, um, [pauses]—school was going at a pretty even level when he took over, and he kept it at that level. And there wasn’t any of the large disputes then. And he just got tired of the job. He went to Platt.

LL: Right, right. And I know the position opened up, the person who was hired backed out, and they must of, I would think, put pressure on Bill to come back. But he, he was gone. [laughs]

LD: Right. Yeah, the person they hired was—I was pretty worried because that person was going to do all kinds of different things, at Fairview. But then he didn’t come. And then they got Werpy[?] from—he was a principle for a year at um—

LL: Baseline.

LD: —Baseline, yeah. Two, threes years, he was there.

LL: That’s when you had—was that difficult adjusting to all the different leadership styles that one period of time were there?

LD: It was somewhat. And in particularly after, after Werpy, [?] then they had two or three others that—they were really different [? difficult?]—we had some teacher committees that where formed, to try to straighten out the principal.

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LL: How did that work?

LD: Well it—it was always kind of a conflict and—

LL: And you are in the middle of that whole thing.

LD: Yeah. I can think of a science teacher that was really active.

LL: And did it work out okay then?

LD: Well, there was always this kind of conflict with the—in fact, most of the faulty was with the rebel group.

LL: Yeah. And did the superintendent have to get involved then with those situations or—?

LD: Kind of stayed out of it, I think.

LL: They did? They let the school—

LD: Yeah, they didn’t—probably told to the principal to take care of it himself. [laughter] They didn’t want to get involved.

LL: How about the teachers’ organization, the education association, were they involved at all when those things occurred or do you remember?

LD: Not too much, I don't remember that. There were, of course, there were committees and study stuff. But far as having basic changes, a lot of teachers figure, well, we’ll last a couple, three years, and then we’ll get a new principal.

LL: [laughs] Oh, we’ll ride it out, and they’ll be gone, huh?

LD: They’ll be gone, and we’ll get somebody else. Now they had two or three—Dennis Dee [?] was over at Centaurus as an assistant. Well, he was at Fairview as a teacher. Then he went to Boulder High as a football coach. Then he went into administration. He was at Centaurus. And then he was brought back to Fairview as principal about 4 years. I remember Jim Williams coming over and saying this is a really good thing that we got Dennis Dee back as a principal. He was good. It was interesting when he first came from an inner city school in Chicago and our first assemblies—we had kids go to assembly that was at—he was right down there on top of the kids because that’s the—in Chicago what they had to do, when they had school assembly, they really had to watch these kids.

LL: So he was a teacher then?

LD: No, he was the, ah—yeah, he was a teacher then.

LL: And so—

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LD: He took over the, kind of that duty—teachers are suppose to go to the assemblies with the kids, but he was very active in it.

LL: [laughs] He took his job seriously, because of his previous experience.

LD: Right.

LL: How did the other teachers view that? Was he, did they think he was too aggressive or too— ?.

LD: Well, they kind of let him do it, I think.

LL: He was doing their job for them, right? Supervising the students. So how did he form this cohesive group then at Fairview?

LD: Well, when he left Fairview he had a lot of friends, and he was well thought of as a teacher. He was a science teacher? Well, anyway, he went to Boulder High, and then to Centaurus as assistant principal.

LL: Who hired him to be the principal at Fairview? Did you have committees then or it was more of an appointment from the—?

LD: I think it was committees, but some were appointment too. I can’t remember who the superintendent was. I know Jim Williams was heavily involved in it. He was probably the main person that pushed to have Dennis come back, because Jim always had a strong feeling for Fairview—went down there to see what some of these principals—some of the things they did.

65:44

LL: So Dennis, when he was selected, the staff was relieved, because many of them knew who he was and they liked—

LD: His style.

LL: Yeah.

LD: He did a good job there. He was, about 4 years, or something like that.

LL: And then did he go on to other leadership positions or—?

LD: I don’t remember what he did. Later on, later years he went to Israel. For something, I can’t remember what.

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LL: Any other things you want, we’ve been going for a while. Larry, are there other things you’d like to mention before we close, as far as experiences you had either with the school district or living in South Boulder or things of that nature?

LD: Well, I felt while at the school district I was really fortunate, because my timing was such that the school district was being formed, and Fairview High School—we had what I considered the—kind of the golden years, the early ‘70s. We had all these things we were trying, and then— [phone rings]

LL: So you were able to be idea person and—.

LD: Right, and work with it and [phone rings]—kind of as a—

LL: Well, maybe that phone ring is an indication that—I want to thank you so much, Larry, for providing this time.

67:19

[End of interview]

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