Richmond High School - Shield Yearbook (Richmond, CA)

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». — L. C. Keading, Standard Oil Representative, greets Joe Alvarez, R. U. H. S. Fall Student Body President. Pointing out various divisions of the Oil Refinery is Mr. L. C. Keading to members of the Shield Staff: Bob Walker, Photographer; Annette Cena, Editor, and Diane Atwood, Assistant Editor. a Looking over the grounds of the Richmond Refinery are Larry James, Student Association Spring Presi- dent, and Mr. L. C. Keading, Standard Oil Company Executive. Foreword As the theme for the RUHS 1960 Shield, we have chosen an industrial organization. This industry, the Standard Oil Refinery of Richmond, California, is intimately associated with the life and growth of our city. It has also made itself felt in certain of the most treasured traditions of our school. For example, both Standard and Richmond Union High share the symbolic colors, red and blue. Also, both claim the fight name, “‘Oilers’’, and our mascot is the oll can. In choosing the Standard Refinery as our theme, we were struck by the idea that many parallels can be found between the production of oil, on the one hand, and the education of high school students, on the other. To illustrate these similarities, we have taken several pic- tures at the local refinery which, we think, will bear out the aptness of our idea. Further, we have sketched on each division page some significant innovation or event which, in the past sixty years, has both directly affected the fortunes of the Standard Refinery, and has also, indirectly, symbolized certain facets of school life. A tanker. for example, symbolizes the first step in the story of oil. As the tanker carries the crude oil to the refinery, the administrative staff and the faculty may be said to carry knowledge and instruction to students. The sketch of an oil well signifies the primary importance of oil, and by extension, the basic nature of knowledge. Government is portrayed by the many supply lines which carry the oil throughout the plant. This parallels the function of student body officers as they exercise their leadership in school affairs. The drawing of the automobile indicates the period from 1900 to 1910 when gas and oil were first consumed in large quantities by the auto, and a growing number of students were, we insist, consuming knowledge. Again, just as petroleum is distributed from the control room throughout the plant to become different materials, so the well-ordered plans of the Seniors direct them toward their future. The sketch repre- sents the World War I decade of 1919-1920 in which the oil industry made great advances, and education in world problems assumed new importance. The distillation plant transforms raw materials into finished products in much the same way as classes create an informed citizenry. The drawing of the tractor indicates that just as more complex machines require better fuels for operation, so social progress demands finer education for the student. A residuum stripper takes the refined oil and further refines it, making it into better material, capable of more uses, In school the student may improve himself by participating in activities. The sketch indicates that in the depression years of 1930-1940 the Works Progress Administration promoted road-building, one of the many projects which helped to ease our nation’s burden. Student organizations foster what misht by called the by-products of education, as does California Research, which creates useful by- products by investigating the potential of oil. The drawing, represent- ing the decade of World War II and the Korean War, suggests that organizations, dynamic and often explosive in their actions, not only contribute activities and ideas to the school, but also make possible the development of the students’ potential. Nowhere in school life are teamwork, cooperation, and skill so basic as in athletics, It is these qualities utilized by industry, that have made possible the construction and operation of the canfiller. The drawing of the space satellite symbolizes the fact that teamwork, co- operation, and skill, combined with scientific knowledge, have led to the penetration of space. The Thermafor Catalytic Cracking Unit, known as the Cat-Cracker, has led to the creation of new products from oil, and may be com- pared to the lively class discussions and debates from which new concepts and insights arise. The complexities of marketing gasoline, the end product of oil, are represented by the sketch of the Standard Oil Station, which, we think, is a most proper svmbol for our final section, Advertisements. Although our theme, the Standard Oil Refinery of Richmond, Cali- fornia, has forced us to interpret the educative process as a mechani- cal one. which, in fact, it is not, we feel that the industrial metaphor is a good one, since we and our school exist in an environment that is industrial, and one that has certainly been created in large measure by the benefits of the Standard Refinery. We should add, however, tha t while our lives are necessarily affected by the presence of the great oil industry, this fact in nowise implies that our education is in the least oleaginous. Like the Standard Refinery itself, our three-year adventure in learning has been productive, useful, busy, and completely necessary. It has also been fun. And even in this, Standard has afforded us much entertainment with its cat-crackers, residuum strippers, supply lines, distillation plants, control rooms, and slick tankers which, by a tre- mendous stretch of the imagination, we have now made our very own, And so, with happy triumph, we present ‘‘Oil and the Oilers’’.