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A very nice article as published today in the Press Enterprise about my work in the school library. I am thrilled with this very flattering story written by reporter Stephen Wall, since I take every opportunity I can to praise our nation’s hardworking and dedicated teachers. The article mentions my book, Chalkboard Champions, published by Wheatmark in 2012. If you would like to check it out, here is the link: Inland Area Press Enterprise.
Category Archives: Education
Torin Nathaniel Smith: The New York Giants Player Who Became a Junior High School Geography Teacher
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Many chalkboard champions have made a name for themselves in professions other than education. Such is the case with Torin Nathaniel Smith, a junior high school geography teacher who is also a former professional football player.
Torin was born on September 30, 1961. He attended Mesa Community College in Mesa, Arizona. In 1985, he graduated with his bachelor’s degree in sociology and psychology from Hampton University in Hampton, Virginia. While in college, Torin played for the Hampton Pirates as a defensive end, defensive tackle, and linebacker. One year he played for the Pensacola Stars, a semi-pro team that no longer exists. In 1987, Torin made his professional debut in the National Football League as a defensive end with the New York Giants. It makes sense that he would play that position, as he is a hefty man, measuring 6’4″ in height and weighing in at 230 pounds. Torin played for the Giants for one year.
Before becoming a school teacher, Torin worked extensively mentoring juvenile delinquents and emotionally disturbed teenagers. He did a stint as a substitute high school teacher and worked as a body guard at rock concerts, but then accepted a position as a geography and civics teacher at J. H. Workman Middle School in Pensacola, Florida. He also served as the Head Coach for the Workman Middle School Lady Jags Basketball Team and Track Club. During the 2011-2012 school year, the Lady Jags Basketball Team went undefeated (10-0) and won the Escambia County Middle School Basketball Championship. That same year, the Lady Jags Track Club won the Escambia County Middle School Track Championship.
Well done, Torin!
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The Adventurous Teacher Crystal Brilliant Snow Jenne
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Alaska’s history abounds in stories about lionhearted pioneers who were also chalkboard champions. One such teacher was Crystal Brilliant Snow Jenne.
Crystal Jenne was born on May 30, 1884, in Sonora, California. In 1887, when only three years old, she emigrated to the Alaska Territory with her parents, who worked as a troupe of actors who entertained Alaska’s gold miners. When her father joined the Klondike Gold Rush, the family moved to Circle City, where her father built an opera house. At one point, Crystal’s father discovered gold, so the family moved to Seattle, Washington. Unfortunately, her father lost his investments, and so the Snows returned to the Alaska Territory.
For a number of years, Crystal’s mother tutored her, but the child was ten years old before she was enrolled in school for the first time. She attended an Alaskan mission school, where she learned “singing, praying, and knitting.” When the family moved to Juneau, Crystal was sixteen. Despite her age, she was placed in a fifth grade class. Being behind in formal education did not stop Crystal from achieving, however. She graduated from Juneau High School in 1905 at the age of twenty-one, the only member of her class.
Following her high school graduation, Crystal enrolled in the University of California, Berkeley, where she majored in music. She also earned a teaching certificate. After her college graduation, Crystal taught in Paso Robles, California. From 1907 to 1908, Crystal taught school in Douglas, Alaska. A talented musician, Crystal performed creekside concerts for gold miners in the Alaska and Yukon Territories when she was not in the classroom.
Always thirsty for knowledge, the venturesome teacher attended the Spencerian Commercial School in Cleveland, Ohio, where she studied business and shorthand. Following her graduation from business school, Crystal returned to Alaska, where she continued her career in education, teaching in Skagway, Sitka, and the Mendenhall Valley, and also at her alma mater, Juneau High School.
In 1916, Crystal married Dr. Charles Percival Jenne, a Juneau dentist, and the couple had three children. Their daughter, Corrine Bertha, was born in 1918; their second child, Charles Jacob, was born in 1919; and their daughter, Phyllis Mae, was born in 1921. Even after she started her family, Crystal continued to teach and give concerts. In 1923, she performed her mother’s composition, Alaska and the U.S.A., for President Warren G. Harding and First Lady Florence Harding, during their visit to Juneau.
Charles Jenne passed away in 1938. The next year, Crystal published a volume of historical poetry.Meanwhile, she pursued community activities, participating in church choirs, running a flower shop, and continuing with her teaching career. In 1940, this remarkable educator was elected to the Alaska Territorial House of Representatives on the Democratic ticket. She was the first woman to run for representative in the Alaska Legislature. She served several terms representing the First District of Southeast Alaska.
During her lifetime, Crystal was a member of the Alaska Federation of Women’s Clubs, the Democratic Women’s Club, the Juneau Women’s Club, and the National Business and Professional Women’s Club. She passed away on June 5, 1969, at the Sitka Pioneer Home.
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Willa Brown: Chalkboard Champion and Pioneer Aviatrix
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Many exceptional teachers use their instructional expertise to work with students outside of the classroom. Willa Brown, the first African American woman licensed to fly in the United States, is an excellent example of this.
Willa was born January 22, 1906, in Glasgow, Kentucky. She earned her degree in education from Indiana State Teachers College in 1927. She also completed the requirements for an MBA from Northwestern University in 1937. Following her college graduation, Willa was employed as a high school teacher at Roosevelt High School in Gary, Indiana, and later as a social worker in Chicago.
Willa was always seeking challenges and adventures in her life, especially if they could be found outside the limited career fields normally open to African Americans at that time. She decided to learn to fly, studying with Cornelius R. Coffey, a certified flight instructor and expert aviation mechanic at a racially segregated airport in Chicago. Willa earned her private pilot’s license in 1938. Later, Willa and Cornelius married and founded the Coffey School of Aeronautics at Harlem Airport in Chicago, where together they trained black pilots and aviation mechanics. Willa conducted the classroom instruction and Cornelius conducted the in-flight practice.
In 1939, Willa, Cornelius, and their friend Enoch P. Waters founded the National Airmen’s Association of America. Their goal was to secure admission for black aviation cadets into the US military. As the organization’s national secretary and the president of the Chicago branch, Willa became an activist for racial equality. She persistently lobbied the US Government for integration of black pilots into the segregated Army Air Corps and the federal Civilian Pilot Training Program (CPTP), a system established by the Civil Aeronautics Authority just before the outbreak of World War II. The CPTP’s purpose was to provide a pool of civilian pilots for use during national emergencies. Willa was given the rank of an officer in this first integrated unit. In 1948, when Congress finally voted to allow separate-but-equal participation of blacks in civilian flight training programs, the Coffey School of Aeronautics was one of a select few private aviation schools selected for participation. Later, her flight school was selected by the US Army to provide black trainees for the Air Corps pilot training program at the Tuskegee Institute. Willa was instrumental in training more than 200 students who went on to become Tuskegee pilots. Eventually, Willa Brown became the coordinator of war-training service for the Civil Aeronautics Authority and a member of the Federal Aviation Administration’s Women’s Advisory Board. She was the first black female officer in the Civil Air Patrol and the first black woman to hold a commercial pilot’s license in the United States.
This remarkable educator and pioneer aviatrix passed away on July 18, 1992. In 2010, Willa was awarded the Distinguished Alumni Award by the Indiana State University Alumni Association. She was inducted into the Aviation Hall of Fame in her native Kentucky in 2003. To find out more about this remarkable chalkboard champion, you can read a chapter about her in my next book, tentatively titled Chalkboard Heroes, which is scheduled for publication later this year.
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Teacher Etta Schureman Jones: The Chalkboard Champion and Prisoner of War
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Teacher Etta Schureman was over forty years old when she and her sister ventured into Alaska Territory to teach Native Eskimos in primitive rural schools. After one year, the sister returned to the Lower 48, but Etta, who had met Foster Jones, the love of her life and married, settled permanently in Alaska.
Eighteen years later, Etta and her husband were working together in the remote Aleutian island of Attu when Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Empire of Japan on December, 7, 1941, “a day that will live in infamy.” They were slated to be evacuated by the U.S. Navy when the island was invaded by Japanese troops. Although the couple were in their sixties, Japanese soldiers killed Foster and removed Etta to an internment camp in Japan, where she was incarcerated with a small group of Australian nurses who were also prisoners of war. The Attuan natives, about three dozen of them, were also taken to Japan, with the apparent intention of assimilating them into the Japanese population. Although the surviving Attuans were repatriated after the war, Etta never saw her students or their families again.
Etta’s intriguing tale of survival is told brilliantly by Mary Breu in her book Last Letters from Attu: The True Story of Etta Jones: Alaska Pioneer and Japanese POW. A fascinating read, to be sure. You can find this book at amazon at the following link: Last Letters from Attu. I have also included a chapter about this fascinating teacher in the book I am currenlty writing, Chalkboard Heroes.
