OXNARD : Board Members Join District Celebration

The Oxnard Elementary School District celebrated its long history last week with a gathering of former board members who reminisced about their time on the board.

“If everybody says what’s in their heart, it will be a long meeting,” said Donald L. Ruggles, who served from 1952 to 1958.

The special meeting was more like a high school reunion, with about 50 people fondly greeting one another and looking through a table of photographs of past events.

Supt. Norman R. Brekke presented a booklet chronicling the history of the 117-year-old district, with board minutes from 1917, a 1923 budget and a graduation program from 1943. Brekke noted significant events during the years, including federally mandated busing, the building of new schools and the district becoming the first in the county to have year-round schools.

Fifteen former board members and the son of Noble A. Powell, who served from 1933 to 1936, were given gold lapel pins by Board President Charles R. Johnson. Johnson had suggested the special meeting, where portraits of past members were unveiled on a wall of the boardroom.

“As I look out here,” Johnson said, “we have a family atmosphere. We want to show you what you started. Because of you, we have survived and we thank you very much.”

Thomas Kane, who served from 1963 to 1971, said the job of trustee was a difficult one, particularly during the era of mandated busing of students.

Noting one of the teachers listed in the 1917 board minutes was his aunt, Harriet Puntenney, Kane said, “My time on the board was personally rewarding, but when I think that my Aunt Puntenney supported a host of relatives on $165 a month, I am in further debt to the district.”