‘Grandma’ Is the Law at La Habra High, but She’s Shed Some Tears

In earlier days, they were called truant officers. Today they’re known as campus supervisors, although students who get caught by them usually use more colorful names.

At La Habra High School, however, the campus supervisor is called “Grandma.”

“Grandma has a way with kids,” said Principal Thomas Triggs during a class break, “partly because she not only talks to them, but she listens. Kids just like to be heard.”

Actually, Grandma is white-haired Sylvia Gebhart, 65, of Fullerton, who seems to be perpetual motion, urging students to “walk and talk” as she patrols the campus, urging them to move along to class. She has been campus supervisors for six years.

“I don’t get any flak from them,” said Gebhart, who actually is a great-grandmother. “I treat students as adults and with respect, and that’s the way I want to be treated. I’m a disciplinarian, and they all know it. When I tell them to go to class, they go to class.”

But Gebhart, married 45 years and the mother of two daughters, hardly escapes the campus drama. “I’ve shed some tears,” she admits, “because kids get into trouble and you try to make things better.”

Regardless of individual problems, Gebhart maintains a strict stand-offish posture. “I never give advice,” she contends. “I’m not qualified. I send them to the campus psychologist.”

And students are well aware of her role, one pointing out that “Grandma keeps us out of trouble.” Although she works six hours daily and supervises four other campus monitors, she often chaperones dances and attends school sporting events. She is a former girls softball team manager and still holds a 129 bowling average.

While contending that La Habra High has few “ major problems,” she acknowledges that drug use and off-campus troublemakers are two of the reasons she roams parking lots as well as off-campus areas where students congregate.

“I know kids,” she said, “and I know how they operate.”

Occupational therapist Annette Corpron, 42, of Silverado, was a woman who loved life and God. After losing her battle against cancer, she left this message at the Silverado Fire Department, where she had been a volunteer firefighter since 1978.

“What can I say to you that might be meaningful. Death and dying are really scary because it’s an unknown. We protect ourselves by denying somewhat that it will happen to each of us and by hiding away those who are dying. We so desperately cling to life.

“How many times I said to God, ‘Oh please, just one more sunset, one more hike to the top of the hill and just one more Code 3 ride on the fire engine.’ And God in his wisdom has many times said to me, ‘OK, one more time.’ But time being finite, passes and all too soon it is time for us to leave. Live each day as if it was the last of your life.”

It was read at a memorial service by her hospice nurse, Carol Cada of El Toro.

Jo Lindberg, 24, of Tustin, has two goals: Visit a hospital every day in Orange County to give each patient a hug, and form a nationwide “hugger” company.

The first goal is a free service and her way of giving; the second is geared toward her financial independence. Dressed in a teddy bear costume, Lindberg is a professional hugger, charging $45 for a certified hug which includes the certified “hug song” and a certified hug certificate from her Original Bear Hug Co. “Hugs are always appropriate,” she said.

With two out of three Americans active gamblers, psychology instructor Richard S. Lister felt his Orange Coast College course on the psychology of gambling would draw a good number of students.

It turned out to be a losing bet.

“I personally think the gambling topic is immense,” he said, “so it’s difficult to understand why it didn’t take hold,” referring to the course’s cancellation last month. “Perhaps a typical freshman might find it difficult to explain to parents why he was taking a course on gambling.”

He said the course was designed to discuss gambling history, play theory, risk taking and pathological problems as well as the epidemic proportion of gambling in America, especially with the advent of lotteries, which Lister opposes.

“The lottery is not only a bad gamble,” said Lister, a licensed clinical psychologist, “but the people who can least afford the lottery tickets are buying them. An intelligent gambler doesn’t buy lottery tickets.”

Neither does he.