Retired schoolteacher Durward Azbell: He’s also a Viet Nam Veteran

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Retired elementary schoolteacher Durward Azbell during his years of military service during the Viet Nam War.

Tomorrow is Veterans’ Day, a day when our entire nation honors those who have served in the United States military. On this day, I like to remember those brave military veterans who have also served in the classroom. One of these is Durward Azbell, a retired elementary teacher from Ohio. He served in the US Army during the Viet Nam War.

Durward grew up in Columbus, Ohio. He was the youngest of three children raised by his widowed mother. “I was nine, going on ten, when my father committed suicide after an accident left him in severe back pain,” Durward once revealed. “He was an enigma to me, because I knew he was an Army veteran who served in Germany during World War II, but I never really got to hear his stories or understand him,” he said.

When Durward grew up, he was drafted and served three years in the US Army as a Specialist E-5. He was stationed in Viet Nam in what he described as the “very secure” base of Long Binh. Durward considers himself one of the lucky ones. “The only danger I saw was when the Viet Cong blew up our ammo dump,” he confesses. But he appreciates his fellow veterans who, in his opinion, made sacrifices greater than his own. “Those were the true heroes,” he says.

After completing his military service, Durward returned to his home state of Ohio. There he became a fourth grade schoolteacher in Columbus. “I believe the time spent teaching children is the best way a person could spend his or her life,” Durward once asserted. His career as an educator spanned 36 years.

Thank you for your service, Durward, both in the military and in the classroom.

To read more about this chalkboard hero, click on this link: PBS Durward Azbell.

Veteran and Chalkboard Hero John Ardis Cawthorn

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175px-John_Ardis_Cawthon_(Louisiana_Tech)[1]Many of our nation’s talented educators are also distinguished veterans. This is true about John Ardis Cawthon, a high school history teacher from Louisiana who served in the US Army during WWII.

John was born on March 16, 1907, in south Bossier Parish, Louisiana. As a child, he was home-schooled by his mother. When he entered the fifth grade, he was enrolled in a local one-room schoolhouse. After John completed the eighth grade, his family moved to Doyline in south Webster Parish, where the young man completed high school.

After his high school graduation in 1934, John enrolled at Louisiana Tech where he majored in History and English. There he earned a Bachelor’s degree in Secondary Education. He earned his Master’s degree from Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge in 1938.

John accepted his first position as a teacher at a high school in Cotton Valley, where he taught from 1934 to 1935. Later he transferred to Sarepta and was employed there from 1935 to 1939. Next he taught at A.E. Phillips Laboratory School on the Louisiana Tech campus from 1939 to 1940. From 1940 to 1942 John was a professor at Northwestern State University, then known as Louisiana Normal.

When World War II erupted, John was drafted into the US Army. He was 35 years old at the time. The former high school teacher served in Europe in the Education Orientation Division. This position took him to the Biarritz American University in France. In 1974, he published an account of his experiences in the armed forces in an article entitled “A School Teacher Gets Drafted,” published in North Louisiana History.

When the war was over, John decided to pursue his doctorate at the University of Texas at Austin. After earning this advanced degree in 1954, he returned to Louisiana Tech University, where he remained until his retirement in 1972. During this time, he published many scholarly articles in North Louisiana History and wrote several books dedicated to regional history.

This talented educator and distinguished serviceman passed away on October 5, 1984. John Ardis Cawthorn: A true Chalkboard Hero.

Elementary schoolteacher and Nevada politician Marilyn Dondero Loop

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Long-time elementary schoolteacher and Nevada politician Marilyn Dondero Loop.

There are many examples of fine educators who have also enjoyed successful careers in politics. One of these is Marilyn Dondero Loop, a long-time elementary schoolteacher. She now serves as a Nevada State Senator, and she also served in the Nevada State Assembly.

Marilyn was born in Las Vegas, Clark County, Nevada, in 1951. As a young girl, she attended Las Vegas Vegas High School. She earned her Bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education and her Master’s degree in Curriculum and Instruction, both from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Marilyn has worked as an elementary school teacher for the Clark County School District from 1974 to 2004. During her 30-year career in teaching, this chalkboard champion mentored new teachers, worked on education and community projects, and raised a family.

The former teacher was elected on the Democratic ticket to the Nevada State Assembly representing District 5 in 2008. She served there until 2014. While in the Legislature, she was Chair of the Health & Human Services Committee, Chair of Transportation, Vice-Chair of Education, and a member of the Assembly Judiciary Committee. In addition, she served as the Vice-Chair of the Council of State Government’s Education Committee and a Commissioner for the Education Commission of the States. In fact, more than half of the measures she sponsored in each legislative session were related to education. For example, Marilyn was an avid supporter of teacher licensing, which she said ensured the best available educators are in the classrooms.

In 2018, Marilyn was elected to represent District 8 in the Nevada State Senate, where she currently serves. There she acts as the Chair of the Revenue and Economic Development Committee, the Vice Chair of the Commerce and Labor Committee, and a member of the Judiciary Committee.

For her commitment to education, Marilyn garnered the Lifetime Achievement Award for Advancement & Support of Education from the Nevada Association of School Superintendents in 2014.

To read more about Marilyn, read her biography on her campaign website.

Virginia science teacher Aline Black Hicks: She launched an important Civil Rights case

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Virginia science teacher Aline Black Hicks launched a important Civil Rights case.

Often times teachers are at the forefront of movements that benefit entire groups of people in our society. One of these teachers was educator Aline Black Hicks, a high school science teacher who launched an important civil rights court case about equal pay.

Aline was born in Norfolk, Virginia, on March 23, 1906. As a young girl, she attended Booker T. Washington High School in her home town. After her graduation, she earned her Bachelor’s degree from Virginia Normal and Industrial Institute. The school is known today as Virginia State University. Aline earned her Master’s degree at the University of Pennsylvania in 1935.

The neophyte educator inaugurated her career as a teacher when she accepted a position at her alma mater, Booker T. Washington, in 1924. She taught science and chemistry. As an African American, she earned only two-thirds the salary earned by a white teacher doing the same job. Although it was later determined to be a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, this was a common practice in that time.

In 1939, Aline filed a lawsuit against the Norfolk School Board, asking that they base teachers’ salaries on experience and education rather than race. She had the backing of the Norfolk Teachers Association, the Virginia State Teachers Association, and the NAACP. One of her attorneys was Thurgood Marshall, who later became an Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court. Unfortunately, Aline was fired in retaliation for her lawsuit. Once she was no longer employed by the school district, her case was dismissed. However, her lawyers took the case forward with another local teacher, Melvin O. Alston. Eventually the case went all the way to tour nation’s highest court, where the issue was eventually decided in favor of the African American plaintiffs.

In 1941, the Norfolk School board rehired Aline to teach at the school where she had formerly worked. From 1970 to 1973, she worked at Jacox Junior High School as an Instructional Development Specialist until she retired in 1973.

In 2008, Aline was named a Notable African Americans in Virginia History by the Library of Virginia. In 1971, she garnered the Norfolk “Backbone Award” by the Education Association for her contribution to financial, educational and social equality.

This chalkboard champion passed away in Norfolk on August 22, 1974. To read more about her, consult this article in Encyclopedia Virginia.

KISS musician Gene Simmons: Flamboyant rocker and former sixth grade teacher

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Gene Simmons: Flamboyant musician and make-up wearing, tongue-wagging rocker once taught sixth graders in Spanish Harlem.

Almost everyone has heard of the rock band KISS. But did you know that the band’s vocalist, Gene Simmons, was once an elementary school teacher? This flamboyant make-up wearing, tongue-wagging rocker taught sixth graders in the Spanish Harlem section of New York City.

Gene was born on August 25, 1949, in Tirat Carmel, Israel. At birth, his mother, a Holocaust survivor from Hungary, name him Chaim Witz. When he was eight years old, he immigrated to the United States with his mother. They landed in New York City. His father remained in Israel with his other children. Once he arrived in the United States, Chaim changed his name to Eugene Klein, adopting his mother’s maiden name. 

Upon his high school graduation, Gene attended first Richmond College and then Sullivan County Community College, both located in New York. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in Education. A master of languages, Gene speaks Hungarian, Hebrew, Turkish, High German, Japanese, Spanish, and English.

Before he inaugurated his career as a performer, Gene worked a number of odd jobs in New York City. He served as a deli cashier, an office temp, and an assistant to an editor of the fashion magazine Vogue. He also taught sixth graders at PS 75 in Spanish Harlem.

To be honest, Gene’s career as a teacher was very short. “The reason I quit after six months,” the rocker once explained, “is that I discovered the real reason that i became a teacher. It was because I wanted to get up on stage and have people notice me,” he confessed. “I  had to quite because the stage was too small.Forty people wasn’t enough. I wanted forty thousand,” he concluded.

Gene still supports education. Not too long ago he filmed a British reality television show called Rock School in which he formed a rock band from a group of classically-trained children at a  prestigious English boarding school.

To read more about Gene’s career as a rocker, click on this link to A&E Biography.