The Class of a Fine Field

Marlon Brando, whose difficult childhood once landed him with relatives in Orange County, wrote something I found alarming: Until a middle school shop teacher in Santa Ana--the late Burton Rowley--took an interest in Brando, he went through life assuming no one was supposed to care about him.

The attention so dramatically boosted Brando’s self-image that he got the courage to pursue acting. “His words of encouragement affect me to this day,” Brando wrote in his autobiography.

Think back to your days in school, and the teachers you had. Chances are that one or two greatly influenced the paths you later took.

This week I got the chance to meet five teachers considered extraordinary by their peers and students. They were so outstanding that each was honored as a “Teacher of the Year” by the Orange County Department of Education at a Disneyland Hotel event.

The five come from different fields, but they share a common bond voiced by one winner, Katherine Keichline of Theodore Roosevelt Elementary School in Anaheim: “Teaching children is a privilege.”

If I were in education, I couldn’t imagine any higher accolade than the one Heather Robertson of Huntington Beach gave to one winner, Rebecca Lynn Goodoien: “She was the best teacher I ever had.” You can’t place that on your mantle, but you’d sure carry it around with you every day.

Goodoien won for her highly popular banking class at Coastline Community College District’s Regional Occupational Program in Costa Mesa. Robertson was there to cheer her on. Keichline won for her work with children who have language difficulties.

The other three: Christie May Baird, a kindergarten teacher from James A. Whitaker Elementary in Buena Park; Meredith D. Ritner, seventh-grade English teacher at Aliso Viejo Middle School, and Philip Mayfield, who teaches English at Fullerton College.

It wasn’t an easy road for some of them. Baird has been teaching for 10 years despite a warning that, because she has lupus, she might never hold a full-time job. A reading disorder was a tough hurdle for Goodoien. But after a successful banking career, she earned her vocational teaching credential in 1983, the same day, she says proudly, that she became a grandmother.

Ritner said she heard news of her nomination for the award the same day she found out she was pregnant with her first child. On the stage of the Disneyland Hotel, she said she was due to deliver “any second.” (I called Wednesday--no baby yet.)

Ritner believes in making English come alive. She has her students give poetry and book readings at Borders Books & Music in Laguna Hills. They even create their own book as a class, choosing the theme themselves and doing all the artwork.

Says Ritner: “I’ve never stopped going to school. One reason I love teaching is because I get paid to do what I love most--learn.”

Mayfield, the other English teacher who won, told me he never dreamed he would wind up as a teacher, but was hooked during a stint as a teaching assistant in college.

Though he is 40 now, Mayfield said, “I’m really just a college kid who never grew up, so teaching is my way of staying in college.”

Mayfield is a huge defender of his students’ generation: “I’d rather hang around with college kids than any other class of people. I think they’re terrific.”

A lot was said about teachers at the Disneyland Hotel event, about their dedication and professional pride. The words that impressed me most came from Mayfield. They were written under his picture in the event’s program: “We are accountable to every student in every class, every day.”

Making the Bard Proud: English teacher James Hines, who died in 1994, was highly popular in the classroom at Fullerton High School, and later at Saddleback College. A teacher for 40 years, his love of Shakespeare was legendary among his students.

One of them was Sue Gross of Newport Beach. She and her husband, investor William Gross, have set up a foundation to honor Teacher of the Year candidates in Orange County with $100,000 each year in prizes. They’ve named it the Dr. James Hines Foundation. The five finalists mentioned above all received gifts of $15,000. Another $25,000 is divided among the other 45 nominees.

A Brief Footnote: One teacher’s story has stayed with me all my life. It came from Fred J. Walker Jr., my journalism professor at Vincennes (Ind.) University. He told us about his student days at Indiana University:

He had spent hours and hours working on an important term paper. He finished it just before midnight, got into his pajamas, slipped into bed dead tired, and was about to doze off when he remembered a footnote he had failed to properly document. The book he needed for it was at the all-night Graduate Library a half-mile away on the other side of campus. It was the dead of winter, but he got up, got dressed, braved the snow and bitter cold, and briskly made his way to the library.

For one stinking footnote.

When he related that, I was a sophomore and so cocky I am embarrassed about it now. After class, my fellow students and I all agreed: We wouldn’t cross the street for a footnote, let alone walk half a mile through the snow.

But when I transferred to Indiana University my junior year, I thought of that footnote story every time I walked by the Graduate Library. Later on, I came to learn that chasing footnotes is what the newspaper business is all about. We devote our lives to the task. That’s what Professor Walker was trying to tell us.

Wrap-Up: You might consider this: Sit down and write to some former teacher who had an impact on you, just to let that person know. Shop teacher Burton Rowley never realized he had so dramatically affected the direction of Brando’s life. Maybe our educators would be glad to see we haven’t forgotten them. If you follow up on this idea, please send me a copy. I’d love to read what you write.

Jerry Hicks’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by calling The Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823, by fax at (714) 966-7711 or by e-mail at jerry.hicks@latimes.com.