JERRY PERSON -- A Look Back

This week, let’s look at a few teachers who came here to teach at

Huntington Beach High School.

I’m doing this in response to several comments from readers who said I

don’t include their favorite teacher when I write about our local

schools. So this week, we’ll take the middle 1950s and see how these

teachers came to teach at Huntington Beach High.

From Long Beach came our first teacher, James E. Greer, who taught

both driver’s education and industrial arts. Greer received his teaching

credentials from Cal State Long Beach.

Math teacher Ronald Schryer lived in Huntington Beach and studied at

both Fullerton College and Orange Coast College before getting his

bachelor’s degree from Cal State Long Beach. Before starting his teaching

here in 1956, Schryer taught mathematics at Western High School in

Stanton.

William Lower taught business to our future leaders. He received his

credentials from USC and his associate’s degree from Long Beach City

College. He had also taught at Garden Grove High School.

Before coming to Huntington Beach High to teach freshman English,

Joann Turner was employed as an airline receptionist, a secretary for a

San Francisco auto dealership and worked in Seattle for Pacific

Telephone. Turner was born in Idaho and received her training at Stephens

College in Columbia, Mo., the University of Idaho and San Francisco City

College.

Our next teacher, Allee Johnson West, came to Huntington Beach High to

teach typing. West was a secretary in Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s

headquarters in Japan just after World War II, and later she taught at

Taft High School and Lindbergh Middle School in Long Beach.

If our students know what to look for when they look at a piece of

art, then we can thank Jack Ageaoili for that, for that is what he taught

at Huntington Beach High. He had taught at Fallbrook High before he came

here.

How many of you had Norman Dilley in science class? Dilley had taught

at La Habra High and at River Falls College, Fullerton High School, Santa

Ana College and at USC.

Our last teacher is Fred Myers, who came to Huntington Beach High to

teach sophomore English in the mid-1950s. He was educated at Chapman

College and at Cal State Long Beach.

There are many more names to list, but I would just like to thank

these unsung heroes who have contributed so much to our society and to

our residents. Thank you!

* JERRY PERSON is a local historian and longtime Huntington Beach

resident. If you have ideas for future columns, write him at P.O. Box

7182, Huntington Beach, CA 92615.