4 trustees, nearly 2 centuries of service—so far
By:
Brian Taylor
California voters amended the state constitution in 1952 to increase guaranteed per-pupil funding for education by 50 percent—from $120 to $180. Voters in Fresno County’s University Colony School District made another wise decision, electing Delbert Cederquist to their board of trustees.
Education has seen good years and bad since then. Del has seen it all, and he’s looking forward to more good years, if he has anything to say about it—and he probably will. He was unopposed on November’s ballot for another term.
He’s no longer on the University Colony board, though; it gave way to the Pacific Union School District in 1958, and Del went along, serving on its board until 1991. He’s now on the board of the Fresno County Office of Education, where he’s been since 1994. That puts him in his 52nd year of service—or 54th if you count the two years when Del says he was on both the University Colony and the Pacific Union boards at the same time.
“You have to have an understanding wife,” Del says. “No doubt about it.”
Del still lives on the Fresno County ranch where he was born, never mind how many years ago. He and his understanding wife raised two sons. One, Eric Cederquist, is now assistant superintendent in nearby Fowler Unified School District.
They also ran—and ran, and ran
South of Fresno lies Tulare County, where Dr. Edward F. Peterson was on the first elected county board of education in 1956. He remained there through 1996, serving as president from 1961 to 1977 and again in 1989. He retired in 1996, but it didn’t take; the board tapped the former dentist to fill a vacancy in 1999, and the voters have returned him to office ever since.
“I’m a retired pediatric dentist, so children have always been uppermost in my life,” he says.
Tulare COE’s public information officer, Rob Herman, credits the long-serving trustee as a pioneer of the Clemmie Gill School of Science and Conservation—SCICON—and that’s what the good doctor enjoys talking about the most. He helped launch the environmental education showcase in 1957, on 30 acres that were donated to the program. Starting with a roster of 600 students per year, SCICON’s natural history museum, raptor center, planetarium (with an observatory) and tree nursery now attract some 13,000 students annually.
“It’s absolutely out of this world,” says Dr. Peterson.
Farther south in Ventura County, Elaine Garber has been on the Hueneme Elementary School District for 46 years, giving her the third-longest tenure of any school board member currently serving in the state.
“I’m in for another four years. I guess we’re doing pretty good work,” says the one-time English teacher who still rates the promotion of reading instruction as a priority item among her board duties.
Over the past 50 years, she’s seen the K-8 district grow from four schools to eight, with 800 students walking the stage at eighth-grade graduation ceremonies earlier this year.
Farther up the coast in San Luis Obispo County, Georgie O’Connor began serving on the Arroyo Grande Elementary School District in 1961, and she moved on to the Lucia Mar Unified School District when it was created in 1965. Like Elaine Garber, she was a pioneer for her gender.
“Being the only woman on the board for the first 15 years, I had to document every statement I made,” Georgie remembers. She must have been persuasive to be returned to office so often; still, at press time she was waiting to see how her bid for re-election would fare.
She tries to do her best for the children of her district as she adjusts to the changes she’s seen in national education trends and local controversies alike. “If you let that kind of thing bother you, you’d never do anything,” she observes.
“You are there to learn. Be careful what you do and what you say,” she counsels her colleagues in governance. “One of the most important things to do is to guide new members that come on.”
Brian Taylor is managing editor of California Schools.
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