Main Street

Local teacher earns national recognition

By Mary Ann Cook

TEACHER OF YEAR: At-risk students in the Fremont High School District owe the Phoenix Program and one of its founding teachers, Maureen Ortiz, a debt of gratitude for new behavioral patterns that allow them to graduate with their home schools.

Ortiz is a Los Gatan who was honored by USA Today as a member of the 2000 All USA Teacher of the Year First Team. Only 24 teachers throughout the land are chosen annually for this award, presented in Arlington, VA.

Ortiz and Laura Auch have been teaching and helping design the Phoenix Program since its inception 12 years ago. The program has an alternative school designed to change the habits and behavior of those having trouble in school.

The trouble can be teens with learning problems, drug problems--those who have lost interest in school and would benefit from smaller class sizes, structured classes and more personal contact. Teens who are parents, or girls who are pregnant, can continue their education through the Phoenix Program.

Most students come in their junior year, play catch up and can finish at their home school. The Phoenix Program is at Cupertino High School. The idea is to learn new ways of behaving that mean success. Absenteeism or tardiness is not tolerated.

Units are three weeks long, very structured and involve reading, writing and speaking. Social responsibility is taught along with academics. These students often have received little support until they enter this program.

Ortiz is a widow with three children. The award won $2,500 for their school for the two English teachers.

FLYING DOCTORS TRAGEDY: Don and Anita Wolf were very much in the thick of the Flying Doctors tragedy where six volunteers died in a plane crash in Mexico recently. The Wolfs had known the six well in their 20-year Flying Doctors history.

Indeed, it was the Wolfs who were coordinating the trip so that some 60 people in 13 airplanes could attend the first annual Flying Doctors seminar in Ensenada. Here is the story in Don's words:

"When the pilot of the doomed plane came back from San Ignatio (where the volunteers had been working) to land at Ensenada, his landing gear indicator warned him his gear was not locked. One of our pilots in the air coming from San Jose talked to him and offered to inspect the gear from the air.

"Another of our pilots had just landed and watched Marv (Weinreb) fly low over the airport ... asking the people in the tower to advise him on whether or not his gear was down. I watched him fly past the tower and turn back to the approach to the airport.

"But we all lost sight of him as he appeared to come around for his landing. But, he never came back to the runway. He crashed out in the desert in a sparsely populated "suburb" of Chepultepec.

"Los Medicos Voladores will go on. The Mexican people at our seminar shed as many tears as we did. Our agreement for a joint effort to help the Mexican poor people has been forged in blood. We will continue our work in memory of those who have died doing what they loved to do."

REUNION: Some 31 LGHS grads gathered for their recent 60th reunion. Eleven had graduated from University Avenue Grammar School (now Old Town) in '36. Leon Aubry, who taught French, was the honored guest. Leonard McKay was speaker, recreating the world of 1940. Leonard and Harriet McKay, Jo Falcone Iesman, Peter Sorensen and Irene Chivers Panighetti organized it.

OPERA/FASHIONS: Clayden Goes to the Opera will be held Nov. 3, at 6:30 p.m. at the Los Gatos Opera House to benefit Opera San Jose and San Francisco's Merola Opera Program. Fashions will be by Los Gatos designer Marian Clayden.

Champagne, food stations, dancing and opera offered. Proceeds mean financial support for gifted young singers and educational programs in schools and the community. For tickets, call 408.808.1364.

ZANY COLLECTIONS: Object Obsession, the History San Jose exhibit at Kelley Park, is rife with oddball collections that tell the social history of this valley. Some of the weirdest: thousands of salt and pepper shakers and paper napkins saved from significant events.

Untold number of wrenches, olive jars full of water with pressed seaweed, and an egg beater collection that looks like an Alexander Calder stabile. Photos of all these were tailored into a collage. The result is fascinating, like a quilt, says research volunteer Anne Louise Heighho.

On a different note, Heighho advises that performer Michael Reardon will proclaim the Book of Mark at St. Andrews Church Nov. 18, at 7 p.m., replete with sound and light. An amazing evening in store, remembering, "This is the way people first heard the gospel message."

SUMMING UP: The Cattle Baron Ball raised an impressive $1.5 million for the American Cancer Society, a baronial sum indeed.

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