Bruce Stewart, long-time Salem School District mathematics teacher, still gets laughs from book given to him in 1960 by students at Parish Junior High School in Salem, Oregon

Bruce Stewart, long-time Salem School District mathematics teacher, still gets laughs from book given to him in 1960 by students at Parish Junior High School in Salem, Oregon

By Bruce Stewart for Wildcatville 7/30/2023

I started my professional career as a teacher of mathematics at Salem’s Parrish Junior High School in September 1949. I attended Linfield College in McMinnville, Oregon, and was graduated in the spring of 1949, having completed enough credits to secure a secondary certificate to teach ninth through 12th grade.

Carl Aschenbrenner and Neil Brown were Parrish principal and vice-principal respectively and, after an interesting interview, recommended meto teach ninth grade mathematics. There were only two math courses being offered: Ninth grade General Math and First Year Algebra. My assignment was to be six classes of General Math with 36 students in each class. And so it was that for the next 10 years I was privileged to teach many wonderful students.

My classes usually began with a joke. Many were “guffaws”, some poems, lots of one-liners and many groaners. My intent was two-fold. First, to get the students to want be on time, and secondly, to get them to settle down and be ready for the day’s lesson. Generally it worked! 

There were days when, inadvertently, or on purpose, I would miss telling a joke. It wouldn’t be long until a student would say, “Hey Mr. Stewart, you haven’t told a joke for a while.” Then I would go to my file cabinet and pull out a few from my vast collection to try to catch up. 

It got to the point where students would bring jokes to add to my files. To this day, I have four manila folders at least one-inch thick filled with jokes, stories, cartoons, poems, and pictures. The 1969-1960 school year was my last year at Parrish. I was going to North Salem High School to expand my opportunities to teach geometry, second-year algebra, trigonometry and whatever else they wanted me to teach. 

I would miss the eager ninth graders but would also be challenged by older, more mature upper-class students. Many of the ninth graders would be moving on to North High also and might have me for their math classes.

One class in particular, the second-period 1959-1960 class, decided they wouldn’t be able to stand hearing the same old jokes so they gave me a book in hopes of hearing some new ones. That book, which I still have, is called “10,000 JOKES, TOASTS, & STORIES” edited by Lewis and Faye Copeland.
Twenty-seven students of that class signed their names on the flyleaf.

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MORE ABOUT BRUCE STEWART

Bruce Stewart grew up in Tacoma, Wash. He graduated in 1945 from Tacoma's Stadium High School. After graduating in 1949 from Linfield College in McMinnville, he started that year with the Salem School District and retired in 1985. Now 95-years-old, he lives with his wife, Evy, in McMinnville

1949-1960 Parrish Junior High School math teacher
1960-1961 North Salem High School, math teacher
1961-1962 Boston College, student graduate study in math
1962-1965 North Salem High School, math teacher
1965-1970 McNary High School, math teacher
1970-1971 Leave of Absence to be president of Oregon Education Assn.
1971-1972 McNary High School, Keizer, math teacher
1972-1980 North Salem High School, Dean of Boys and Asst. Principal
1980-1985 Mathematics Coordinator for Salem Public Schools
1985- Retired !

Photos: Bruce Stewart with the joke book given to him in 1960 by Parish Junior High students, close up of student signatures on the book’s flyleaf, and the book’s title page. (Tim Marsh photos). Bruce Stewart, North Salem High School teacher in 1974 (NSHS Viking” yearbook).