by Ray Sanchez © 01.03.16
And the fun begins.
El Paso High School is observing the 100th an
and, oh, how alumni and students plan to celebrate it.
“We’re going to paint El Paso orange and black (the school colors),” Michael Montes, newly re-elected president of the El Paso High School Alumni Association, says.
Many events are scheduled but the first order of business in the celebration is the first Legacy Series program on Thursday, Jan.21, in the El Paso High School auditorium.
The program will be highlighting the history and architecture of the school. It’ll be the first in a series of five programs throughout 2016. All programs are free of charge and open to the public.
YES, I HAVE I have a special interest in El Paso High School. I graduated from there and plan to be at some of the events.
Let’s face it, we all have a special place in our hearts for our alma maters, and I’m no different. I tried to be impartial as a sports writer, sports editor and author during my 40 years at the El Paso Herald-Post but I’ve been accused of favoring the Tigers, especially when I was covering high school sports. I don’t think I was, but heck, I may very well have been subconsciously.
After all, I spent four wonderful years at El Paso High School and credit the teachers there for molding me. I played sports, played in the band, joined ROTC and I will always be thankful for my English teacher, Maud Isaacks.
I owe whatever skills I have as a writer to her. In fact, I owe my entire career to her. She was so strict that if you split an infinitive or ended a sentence with a proposition she’d jump on you like … well, like a Tiger.
But she seemed to like my essays. She would give me an A or A-plus and one time wrote on one of my essays, “You should be a writer.”
THAT LITTLE phrase, “You should be a writer,” must have stayed in my psyche because when I came back from Army service after World War II, I went to enroll at what was then Texas College of Mines planning to be a professor of languages. After all, I already knew English and Spanish and had picked up some French and German while serving in Europe.
But when I enrolled at Texas College of Mines I was asked what my “minor” would be. I didn’t even know what a “minor” was but the enroller told me it was something to fall back on in case I didn’t make it in languages.
I thought and thought then Ms Isaack’s words that I should be a writer came to mind. “Journalism,” I blurted out.
I WENT ON to make straight As in journalism and when the El Paso Herald-Post decided to give sports editor Bob Ingram at the El Paso Herald-Post an assistant in the fall of 1949, he called Texas College of Mines and asked if it could recommend someone.
Pete Snelson was my journalism instructor at the time and he, too, seemed to like my essays, especially one I did on Jackie Robinson who had broken the Major League color line.
Professor Snelson, later a state senator, recommended me and I went on to work for the El Paso Herald Post for the next four decades.
I retired from there in 1990 but I didn’t lose the writing itch. I’m now writing a column for another super newspaper, El Paso Inc., and continue churning out books on sports.
I don’t know when it’ll all end, but it’s been a fulfilling career and yes, I thank El Paso High School, and Maud Isaacks, for it.