The Weekly Newspaper of El Segundo
Herald Publications - El Segundo, Hawthorne, Lawndale & Inglewood Community Newspapers Since 1911 - (310) 322-1830 - Vol. 109, No. 50 - December 10, 2020
Inside
This Issue
Certified & Licensed
Professionals.......................8
Classifieds............................9
Coloring Contest.........10-11
Community Briefs...............3
Crossword/Sudoku.............9
Entertainment......................4
Legals.................................8,9
Pets......................................12
Police Reports.....................4
Real Estate.......................5-7
Weekend
Forecast
TK-2 Back for Hybrid Learning
ESUSD staff welcomes our youngest learners back to the classroom for grades TK-2 for hybrid learning. First day back was December 8, 2020. Photo courtesy El Segundo Unified School District.
Main Street Mainstay Dornblaser
is Still Loving His Stylistic Life
By Duane Plank
When El Segundo hairstylist Joe Dornblaser,
owner of Dornblaser’s Hair Design, was
contacted to set-up an interview with an El
Segundo Herald scribe for a possible profile
for the paper, he hesitated a bit, then agreed.
And then nothing happened — no communication
See Dornblaser, page 7
Ray Gen Discusses What Remote
Learning in a Pandemic can Teach Us
Story by Kiersten Vannest
Nearly ten months into the pandemic,
parents, teachers, and students are all becoming
familiar with a new style of learning.
Despite a light at the end of the tunnel
becoming clearer with new vaccines, classrooms
remain largely empty. Students have
grown accustomed to seeing their peers and
educators through a screen, and teachers have
adapted to a digital classroom, for better
or worse. A difficult process for many, El
Segundo High School teacher Ray Gen has
long been prepared for a situation like this.
For the last fifteen years, Ray’s English
and Computer Science classes have been
entirely paperless. All of his class curriculum
and materials can be found on his website,
easily navigable for his high school and
college students. For Gen, who holds a
doctorate in educational technology, this
transition to an all-remote learning environment
was easy. “When I got my doctorate,”
says Gen, “many people thought I would
go straight into administration. But I got
my doctorate not to leave the classroom,
but to become better in it.”
Using his knowledge of educational
technology, paired with his experience on
the school board during the 2008 recession,
Dr. Gen feels he was prepared for this sudden
transition in 2020. However, he doesn’t
feel that this is the best way to educate.
“K-12, I think, should be primarily face to
face,” he explains, “but it can be augmented
strongly, and made more efficient by an
for a lengthy stretch. Finally, almost two
months later, Dornblaser, who has been cutting
hair for more than four decades, returned an
email and said he was still interested in the
interview. He apologized for the delay in answering
the email, writing that “I’m not on my
computer very often (my world is mostly low
tech) and I’ve been putting in a lot of extra
hours at work.”
In the COVID-19 era, with face-to-face
interviews deemed somewhat problematic, the
old-school Dornblaser, who proudly sports a
rotary telephone in his store, asked if we could
do the interview in person, as opposed to on
the phone. So, we did.
Dornblaser said his grandparents moved to
El Segundo around 1930 because they wanted
to “get out of a big city” environment. As
a third-generation resident of El Segundo,
Dornblaser attended El Segundo High School,
where he played football and baseball, at
times being coached by the legendary John
Stevenson in both sports. He graduated in
1977, then, prompted by his father, Bill,
picked-up his cosmetology degree at El
Camino College, and began cutting hair in
his father’s shop located at 137 Main Street,
in 1978, and bought the business from his
father in the mid-90’s.
Bill Dornblaser was quite an athlete himself,
taking part in the 1952 Summer Olympics as
a member of the men’s water polo team that
garnered fourth place in the tournament, and
was coached by El Segundo icon Urho Saari,
stacked with members of the El Segundo
Swim Club. As a youth, Joe followed in his
father’s aquatic footsteps, swimming for the
El Segundo Recreation Park Swim Club, but,
he said, rebelled against the family swimming
tradition when he entered high school, focusing
on football and baseball.
On being coached by Stevenson, Dornblaser
said that while Stevenson was a great baseball
coach, “I had a better experience with him as a
football coach. He was an amazing coach. He
taught us tackle football from the ground-up.”
Dornblaser said that Stevenson was a stickler
for detail, instilling into his players that they
must not only know their position responsibilities,
but also the assignments of the rest of the
See Ray Gen, page 7
Joe Dornblaser
Friday
Partly
Cloudy
60˚/46˚
Saturday
Mostly
Sunny
64˚/48˚
Sunday
Mostly
Sunny
67˚/49˚