EL SEGUNDO HERALD November 23, 2017 Page 13 Eagles from page 5 to that end. Both were born January 18, were Harvey Hazeltine Award Winners, were captains of the baseball team… and got to drive the Porsche around more than attend sixth period. So the real secret to success is to drive your coach’s Porsche during sixth period… Rick Smith was a standout football player. This Class of 1973 grad played football for one of the top San Diego junior colleges for two years where he was the starting safety for one team that went 10-0-1. Rick was also an outfielder for the Seals in the Babe Ruth League. Dave Long was a standout athlete in high school. This 1973 grad was one of the team’s top scorers on the basketball team and was All-League in baseball. He went on to play baseball at LMU and then professionally for the Atlanta Braves where he reached the AAA level. At the Huntsman Games, Long was eight for eight his first eight times up after not swinging a bat in over 20 years. Brad Clark is still a resident of El Segundo and continues to live of surfing almost every day. He has been a truck driver for years and estimates he has logged nearly a million miles. This 1972 grad played for the Stars in the Babe Ruth League. Another ‘72 grad, Terry Ray, left El Segundo and planted his life in Arizona. This former Oaks player graduated from ASU and for years has had a very successful career in real estate. Mike Jellison is a 1972 grad who was a gifted athlete in high school. His leaping abilities and speed are what myths are made of and why he excelled on the basketball court. After leaving El Segundo, Mike went on to a very busy life and became CEO and president of a couple of different and very successful wine companies with $240 million in revenues. Mike is married to Kathy and has two kids, Corey and Nicole. Mike was a member of the Oaks during his Babe Ruth playing days. Bill Newman, from the Class of 1973, is still a great athlete even with one hip replacement. He played brilliantly at shortstop during the tournament and was considered the team’s MVP. Bill Schaffer is an electrician and still lives in El Segundo today, but remembers one Halloween night in 1971 when he had 15 or 16 friends in back of his panel truck. They were loaded with a dozen eggs each. When Jim Obradovich and George Brett pulled up behind the panel truck, the group all jumped out and unloaded most of the eggs on Obradovich’s open jeep. Steve Leal, Class of 1972, left El Segundo and migrated north. He played basketball in college and moved to Washington State. He is a successful general contractor and plays in over 12 softball tournaments a year. Last year, Leal played on a team that won the gold medal at the Huntsman Senior Games and he played in Las Vegas in the World Senior Games where he went three for four with one home run. The highlight of the tournament was not all the pulled muscles--although the Eagles set a record in that category--but it was the last inning of the 17-16 victory and the defensive efforts. Eric Tidwell made two shoestring catches in right field and the final out came courtesy of Eddie Carroll’s play at first. Although the team had more pulled muscles than wins during the tournament, Coach McGregor kept it in perspective by reminding the team every inning, “Remember, this is a reunion.” A reunion that the Eagles are determined to have again at the 2018 Huntsman Senior Games… • Eagle team members from the Huntsman Senior Games pose with their favorite newspaper before the tournament. Front Row. Scott McGregor, Jeff Tidwell, Ivan Tidwell, Eric Tidwell, Bill Newman. Back Row. Keith Wolfsburger, Dave Long, Steve Leal, Eddie Carroll, Kent Spittler, Glenn White, Stewart Swiggum, Rick Smith, Brad Clark, Bill Schaefer, Kirk Wolfsburger, Don Bell. “Sports teaches you character, it teaches you to play by the rules, it teaches you to know what it feels like to win and lose-it teaches you about life.” Wiseburn from front page also noted the importance of taking care of the needs before, during and after school of all interested in pursuing their education in the WUSD,.“If they can’t get what they need from us, they may go somewhere else.” With the District personnel, teachers and students moving into the new gleaming building on Douglas Street during the last couple of weeks as a backdrop, the School Board members witnessed two special presentations--including one helmed by Dr. Aileen Harbeck detailing a new “dashboard,” utilizing current educational tech lingo, that will allow all concerned to track school and student progress. Termed a “local performance indicator review,” the dashboard is available for all to peruse, as data and analytics somewhat replace the old-fashioned teachings of “reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmetic.” Hardback’s presentation quickly delved into current District numbers, including testing scores, suspension rates, chronic absenteeism and graduation rates. The next presentation came from Kim Merritt, who is currently leading the design and implementation of Da Vinci X--which is billed as a “new college transfer and degree pathway for students who wish to complete their freshman general education coursework.” In her presentation, Merritt described Da Vici X as “truly amazing and free to the students--college done differently.” She said that while everything was exciting when the Da Vinci schools came into being, after the afterglow of the charter schools waned, “we noted that, we really saw what was happening” and that Da Vinci graduates were “tracking at the national average” for matriculating students. “There are still a significant portion of our kids that are not successful in college,” Merritt added. The Da Vinci X program, she explained, is about pointing all students towards success in college and leaping over the “old-economy” parameter while preparing high school graduates for what is happening on college campuses and in the workplace in 2017. She also talked about preparing the students for the “gap” in the educational process and guiding the Da Vinci students in understanding the types of challenges they will face in the future. “We have really been focusing on getting kids into college, [thinking] everything would go great,” she said. But that wasn’t the end of the story. Merritt pointed out that the current data shows multiple issues for high school graduates, but that WUSD is aggressively addressing these concerns and utilizing analytics to that end--and that students who participate in the Da Vinci X program have an increased possibility of migrating through college successfully and gleefully tossing their graduation caps into the air sometime in June. Prior to the 100-minute meeting, Johnstone checked in on District issues. He had recently moved all the necessary artifacts and paperwork from Aviation to Douglas in the past couple of weeks, including his Dodger paraphernalia. A staunch Dodger fan who shares season tickets, he announced that he is over the loss by the Blue, responding to a recent email about his sports emotional state with “Go Kings!” Although there were “hiccups” on the first day of student entry to the new Wiseburn edifice (drop-off and pick-up were challenges), the almost always positive superintendent who will retire from the District at the end of the school year, said “campus security issues are surfacing at all schools,” but opening day at Wiseburn was awesome and incredible. Said Johnstone about the move into the new digs: “Honestly, we had a lot of anxiety on the Da Vinci side that they were going to be moving into a building that was incomplete. On the technology side, they were worried that they weren’t going to have everything. If you talked to [all involved], I think that 99.9 percent would say that this is the [best] thing that has ever happened to them. And the other people, from my perspective, don’t even belong here. If you can’t see the glass as not even being half-full, but full-full, then I can’t help you. It has gone very, very well. The technology is up.” But all the work is not completed on Douglas. Johnstone said that they are “still dealing with soil issues” as the construction continues Phase 2 of the project, which includes the much-awaited Aquatics Center, as well as the gym and turf field. Johnstone said he hopes the soil issues will be dealt with very quickly, before the “rainy season” that lasts for who knows how many days in the desert of Southern California. The next regularly scheduled meeting for the Wiseburn School Board, scheduled to take place in the glistening new building on Douglas Street, is slated for December 14. • – Billie Jean King
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