La Cañada Elementary pays tribute to a late teacher by replacing a stolen plaque
In his 32 years of teaching science and leading the chorus at La Cañada Elementary School, Frank Beemer became something of a campus legend.
Students and colleagues — some who were his former students — knew him for his warmth, winning ways with children and the passion he applied to his life’s work until his death in 2003.
It was Beemer’s love of science that brought lessons to life and his love of music that inspired him to pen La Cañada Elementary’s official school song, “The Power and Pride of LCE,” still sung at school assemblies.
“He knew me when I was Barbie,” recalled fifth-grade teacher and current chorus leader Barb Drange, who met Beemer in the early 1970s at age 8, when her father, Don Hingst, was the school principal. “The music and the kids and the teaching were what was important to him.”
Shortly after Beemer died of congestive heart failure, his family worked with LCE administrators and parents to install a plaque on a prominent building where generations of future students could learn about the longtime educator’s contributions.
Installed in May 2004, the piece stood as one of many memorials the campus had amassed in its nearly 130-year history, including a nearby plaque honoring student Molly Petit, who was killed in 1992 while riding her bicycle home from school.
About five years later, Beemer’s and Molly’s plaques were stolen.
“The fact he wasn’t in his spot where he was supposed to be, that was disturbing,” said fourth-grade teacher Dale Freyberger, a former colleague and friend.
Molly’s plaque was rebuilt and placed in a school garden, but for years the only sign of Beemer’s memorial were the scratch marks in the brickwork where the burglar had pried the piece loose from its fittings.
That is, until recently, when the La Cañada Elementary School campus joined members of Beemer’s family — including wife June, brother Rich and daughters Erin and Andrea — in a school assembly to dedicate a new plaque identical to the stolen one.
“This was such a special occasion,” June Beemer said of the Dec. 17 dedication. “Frank was kind of a popular guy, and I think it had a lot to do with the chorus. It was especially poignant at Christmas; he always loved Christmas.”
She thanked the school’s PTA and staff and Principal Emily Blaney for working with the family to reinstall the plaque and hold the assembly. Erin Beemer said she and family members have been overwhelmed by the outpouring of affection and good wishes that came after the event.
For Blaney, it’s part of being a member of the LCE community.
“The neat thing at this school in particular is just the sense of family,” the principal said. “We don’t forget those important people who helped make the place the way it is.”
Twitter: @SaraCardine
Cardine writes for Times Community News.
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