Building Named in Memory of Teacher During Tearful Tribute

Gracie Saavedra, a senior at San Fernando High School, looked approvingly at a portrait of her former geometry teacher. Turning to a group of friends, she said: “I can’t believe how beautiful it is. That’s the way everyone is going to remember him.”

In a tearful ceremony on campus Thursday morning, an assembly of 2,000 students and teachers dedicated the school’s math and science building to Mel Smith, a teacher who died last year after suffering for 1 1/2 years from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, better known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, a degenerative disease of the nerves and muscles.

“You know how there are all these teachers in a school that students don’t like? And then there are one or two teachers that everyone loves?” Saavedra asked, trying to describe Smith’s reputation. “Well, Mr. Smith was the type that everyone loved.”

Smith taught at junior and senior high schools in the San Fernando Valley for 27 years.

There are only a handful of Los Angeles Unified School District buildings named for a teacher or other person, said Roberta Weintraub, East Valley school board member.

‘Seldom Happens’

“This kind of thing seldom happens,” Weintraub said. “In my 6 1/2 years on the school board, this was the only time someone has come to us to name a building after a teacher.”

Smith taught his math and Spanish classes until three weeks before his death. As his disease worsened, he went from walking with a limp to using a cane to being confined to a wheelchair.

Three days before he died in June at the age of 53, school officials got permission to name the building in his honor, San Fernando High Principal Bart Kricorian said.

“I told him that the building where he had taught would be named after him,” Kricorian said. “He smiled as the impact of the honor became apparent.”

Silence, Weeping

Silence fell over the students Thursday during the half-hour ceremony outside the Mel Smith Building, a two-story brick structure in which Smith taught for eight years. Many wept as several students and members of Smith’s family spoke of the teacher one student described as a “man of smiles and determination.”

“Sometimes it was sad to see him when he looked tired,” said Nancy Lipscomb, a junior who was in Smith’s Algebra II class when he died. “But he always had these corny jokes. Like he called the quadratic formula the banana formula. When we would forget the formula, he’d say to think about bananas. It worked.”

“Nothing stopped him from teaching his students,” said Rosina Gonzalez, student body president. She recalled watching each morning as Smith arrived at school and his son helped him into his wheelchair.

“I thought to myself, ‘What dedication this man must have,’ ” Gonzalez said. “That’s how we remember him, as our dedicated teacher and friend.”

‘A Straightforward Man’

With a proud smile, Smith’s widow, Diane, told the students that “Mel was a straightforward man. And straightforwardly he would say ‘I love you’ right now.”

As the school band launched into a lively tune, two color guards unveiled a portrait of a smiling Smith to the cheers, whistles and applause of his former students.