Bruce Stewart Linfield 1949
Stadium High School, Tacoma, June 1945
(Bruce Merwin Stewart)
Black & white photos from 1945 Stadium High School Tahoma yearbook. Page from 50plus Magazine, Greater Portland edition. Aug/Sept 2023. Text follows.
=Community Voices
Long ago career still bringing smiles
By Bruce Stewart, 50plus Magazine, Aug/Sept 2023
I started teaching mathematics in 1949 at Salem’s Parrish Junior High. I had graduated Linfield College earlier with enough credits to teach grades 9-12.
After an interesting interview, the principal and vice-principal recommended me to teach ninth-grade mathematics. Only two courses were offered then: General Math and First Year Algebra. My assignment was to teach six classes of General with 36 students in each class. Over the next 10 years I was privileged to teach many wonderful students.
I usually began classes with a joke. Many were “guffaws,” others were poems, one-liners and groaners. My intent was two-fold. First, to encourage students to be on time, and second, to help settle them to be ready to learn. Generally, it worked!
Occasionally — inadvertently, or on purpose — I missed telling joke for a bit. It didn’t take long for a student to say, “Hey, Mr. Stewart, where’s our joke?” I would promptly go to my vast collection to try to catch up. Eventually students began bringing jokes for my files. To this day I have four folders filled with jokes, stories, cartoons, poems and pictures.
One class, second-period 1959-1960, students tired of my same old jokes and gave me a book in hopes of hearing new ones. I still have 10,000 Jokes, Toasts & Stories, which was a lot of fun. The real treasure? The notes from the 27 students who signed the flyleaf.
Bruce Stewart retired in 1985. Now age 95, he lives with his wife Evy in McMinnville.
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Info from poster:
Bruce M. Stewart graduated from Linfield College in 1949 and from Tacoma's Stadium High School in 1945.
