Richmond High School - Shield Yearbook (Richmond, CA)

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Foreword We know that our school is not run-of-the-mill, We have always turned out accomplished scholars and great teams. We also know how to stage stunning musicals, give great banquets, hold tremendous balls. We are veterans of student government, producing leaders by the hundreds and spirited citizens unnumbered. But theseare not the things which make our school unusual. It is something less tangible, yet powerfully pervasive. It is the distinctive atmosphere that comes with the habit of accommodating many viewpoints, the willingness to live and let live, the absence of snobbery, the lack of infighting and intrigue, Because of these qualities, students have always felt deep affection and loyalty to Richmond Union High. Inevitably, this extraordinary spirit of Richmond pervades the whole of this and any Shield. But the Shield staff wanted particularly to zero-in on this Richmond spirit by means of certain symbolic pictures. These pictures we have used for the Division pages. We are very proud, for example, of the great (aerial) view of the campus shown on the inside covers, which vividly shows, we think, the largeness and complexity of our school. All of on er the other pictures such as the Rock, the Trophy wR Case, and the seniors in middies and Bermudas, MIE TIIG convey, in one way or another, something of the eal ite Od style and air and solid background of our great congested, democratic, good-natured, busy hive of learning. By making, as it were, a tour through this humming, producing world ofRich- mond Union High, we have created not only something of a tour de force in high school year books, but also a startling memorial to democratic education.

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We Dedicate Our Shield to Three Teachers To the old, half-baked question, “are teachers persons?” Richmond Union High School has three dashing, affirmative answers: Mrs. Carroll Parrill, Mrs. Margaret Thompson and Mrs, Alice Clark. This year, on MRS, CARROLL PARRILL As Browning said, everybody has two soul-sides, and Mrs. Parrill is no exception. We know pretty wellthe one she “faces the world with.” This is her teacher-side, which has always been superbly professional. That is, Mrs. Parrill knows inside-out everything there is to know about U.S, History and Civics, her subjects for forty-two years. Furthermore, she knows how to teach them without fuss and feathers, and still make them attractive and interesting. In her cheerful, orderly classrooms, students develop an extraordinary sense of security and loyalty. They know exactly what is expected of them, they know always that they have received a square deal, and they soon learn that hard, steady work is the price of excellence. Mrs. Parrill, in short, is a teacher whose knowledge, methods and management of the young seem as natural and effortless as the workings of Nature itself. On her non-professional side we have reason to believe that Mrs. Parrill finds life to be as juicy andsweet as any proud and happy home- maker. Of handsomely appointed dwellings she has had several, all of them enhanced with the precious antiques she has ceaselessly hunted since girlhood, In recent years she has takento making exquisite woolen rugs. Her cooking is fit for a king, her wardrobe for a queen, her books for a scholar, and her jolly quips andsunny smile for a choir of angels. Her devoted husband, George, is a deeply contented man and no doubt will be even more so, now that his wife will no longer daily sally forth to educate the young. Mrs, Parrill’s background is pure California. Borninthe small town of Lockford, she lived with her family on their Ripon ranch and later with her aunts in nearby Stockton where she graduated from high school. In 1924 she came straight to R,U.H.S, from the University of California. During her long stint of teaching she has served on innumerable student and faculty committees, and most notably as Chairman of the History Department and Sponsor of a very popular Debating Club. One of the members of this club, Bobby Burns, is now President of the University of the Pacific. Dr. Burns has said many times, publicly and privately, that it was Mrs. Parrill, and nobody else, who gave him the lift, the self-confidence, the will-to-succeed, which have taken him to the top of his field. This testimony needs no comment except to say that rarely does any teacher anywhere ever earn wholehearted praise and gratitude like this. ; MRS. MARGARET THOMPSON coer dearest friends take joy in describing Mrs. Thompson as “the isorganized organized” person they know. They claim leaves friends standing on str : einai moving the lens cap, etc. This should shake the f irst- pave aiae a aculty who have first Suggests that Mrs. her spectacular rise Assistant she figured where (and sometimes preternaturally crow se i eee oe ae. for imagination, as when she had Latin to 1959 Mrs, Thompson into curriculum-making her greatest triumphs master programs for R.U.H S.’s double shi -U.H.S, shift years, Saved us all from three shifts.) a ee Ne 00C3S HE inci Meld, [y Ite, cha Mts, ( Dino, 4 lay Eis bar Hal 1 uty) found fy ED preser