A Teacher Passes--With Honors

It is a fact of life that teachers get neither the money nor the credit they deserve for what they do. It is also sad but true that when a significant figure from the field of education passes away, he or she seldom gets the recognition paid to someone from a more colorful occupation, or to a victim of foul play.

And so it came to pass, just a few weeks ago, that when Roger Segure died, no obituary appeared in Los Angeles’ largest newspaper about him.

He was hardly a household word, but to thousands of L.A. teachers, principals and educators on every level, he was definitely a schoolhouse force. He was the advocate of many and the antagonist of more than a few.

Born in 1905, Segure began his professional life playing piano for Artie Shaw, Glenn Miller and several popular big bands.

But his destiny was to become not only a teacher, but for 30 years thereafter a United Teachers-Los Angeles union leader dedicated to working tirelessly on other teachers’ behalf.

“His lifelong passion in fighting injustice lasted to the day of his death,” it was written of him in United Teacher, the house publication of UTLA, for which Segure wrote a popular column. “Thousands of members will gratefully remember the comfort of having Roger in their corner.”

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Ruth Valadez, for one, certainly will.

“He was an incredible person,” she says of Segure, “and my dear friend.”

It was eight years ago that someone first suggested Valadez get in touch with Segure, who served as UTLA’s director of grievance processing.

She was teaching classes in special education at the time. Valadez felt that a principal had unfairly attempted to remove from class a student afflicted with muscular dystrophy-- overly concerned, in her opinion, about the possibility of a lawsuit should the student ever fall in class and be injured.

A friend recommended, “Don’t go through regular channels. Go straight to Roger.”

Tall, old and wise, Segure could cut an intimidating figure. He certainly struck Valadez that way at first, until she persuaded him to take her case.

It was in a grievance hearing, Valadez says, that she noticed how opposing counsel seemed to get under Segure’s skin by making snide and not very veiled references to his age.

Segure took considerable pride in not letting his 80s or even 90s slow him down. “The day I retire,” he was known to say, “is the day I die.”

“You could tell it really hurt him,” Valadez said, for at that point in the grievance process Segure began to counterattack verbally with a vengeance. Valadez eventually won her grievance.

She thanked him with a pair of Laker basketball shorts, in honor of his favorite team.

Others expressed gratitude in other ways over the years, whether for the windmills he tilted at or the genuine wars he fought.

Such as back in 1966, when Segure, as executive secretary of Local 1021, American Federation of Teachers, represented more than 300 teachers who sought transfers from 67 Watts schools due to “intolerable” teaching conditions. School district officials maintained that fear of the area itself was why they wanted out.

“When schools in Watts are reorganized on a quality basis, teachers will flock there to be educators instead of monitors,” Segure maintained at the time. “It happened in New York City in the poverty areas and it can happen here.”

That same year, Segure railed against nearly $3 million being set aside for a parking facility for L.A. school administrators, saying the money should be “diverted to the schools where it belongs.” He also campaigned against administrators’ evaluating the classroom performance of younger teachers, claiming that veteran teachers were more qualified to judge fairly.

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Teachers unions gained strength in the ‘60s, after the age of McCarthyism had passed. Segure himself allegedly had been blacklisted for his union activity, having given his efforts to the racial desegregation of Musicians Local 47. He was unable to find suitable employment in music after having done arrangements for Hollywood films.

Segure, who always kept a piano in his small North Hollywood home, got a job teaching at Birmingham High for a time.

But after a 1970 alliance between two feuding locals created UTLA, the nation’s second-largest teachers union, Segure became what the United Teacher publication described as a “consummate teacher advocate.” He fought diligently for collective bargaining for public employees, which eventually was signed into law.

When he died on Jan. 28, the teachers of Los Angeles lost a devoted ally. “He touched so many lives of people in this city,” Valadez says.

A memorial service is scheduled for today at UTLA’s auditorium. It should be a fitting tribute to a man who traded a life in music for a life in education. It will be Mr. Segure’s opus.

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Mike Downey’s column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Write to him at Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053. E-mail:

mike.downey@latimes.com.