Feature _____________ L
WEÓNEsdAy, DecEMbeR 6, 2000
TI he ClAckAMAS P rint
Volunteering rewarding for adventurer-teacher
PHOTOGRAPHER/ Clackamas Print
Cleo White (right) helps YPOP student Millie Santamaria
crochet a blanket for her baby.
JENNY CHAVEZ
Staff Writer
Retired teacher and volunteer Cleo
White has brought a lifetime of adven
ture and a love of teaching to students
in Clackamas’ Young Parents Oppor
tunity Program (YPOP) while sharing
her intricate art of crocheting.
White began volunteering for YPOP
six years ago after responding to an ad
for someone to teach young mothers
crocheting. She’s been there every
Wednesday ever since. Student
Veronica Partida is one ofher students.
“It’s fun to learn how to crochet,”
said Partida, “because you can learn
to make something special for your
baby, to have and to remember when
he is older.”
White shows up faithfully because
die loves to see the results from the
students.
“They make beautiful tilings,” she
exclaimed. “They’re proud ofwhaithey
have done. It’s a real self-builder craft
and a skill they can use the rest of their
lives.”
White says she has always loved
teaching. As a child she helped teach
younger children in a one-room
schoolhouse that she attended grow
ing up in rural Idaho. She began a for
mal teaching career while still in Idaho,
after getting her teaching credential
through correspondence classes, com
munity college and summer school.
She taught there for 13 years.
“I taught in some classes where
there was one teacher to four grades,”
White remarked.
While in Idaho, White heard of a
need in Bogota, Colombia for teachers
at a mission school for 1000 boys.
According to White, she had wander
lust and eagerly accepted the assign
ment. She spent two years teaching at
the South American mission, and
fondly remembers her summer vaca
tions as well— in the jungles of Co
lombia teaching children and adults
who had no formal educational sys
tem. White recalled a 72-year-old man
who wanted to learn to write his name.
She not only taught him to write, but
also to read; and then left him books
so he could teach the children after
the foreign instructors were gone.
. White recalls another incident as
well.
“This guy came galloping up full
tilt,” she recounted. “He stopped dead
in his tracks right there and said, ‘teach
memath’.”
The man was a construction engi
neer but could only do simple math
calculations. White was giving lessons
to another student at the time and told
him to wait until she was finished, for
getting the local cultural custom that
women must drop everything when
the man speaks. She suffered no re
percussions and was pleased to teach
another eager student.
After returning to the United States,
White moved to Portland where she
taught elementary school for 25 years.
She arrived during the late 1960s, when
enforced integration laws meant buses
ofblack children were transported from
north and northeast Portland to the
southeast, white-dominated schools.
It was a new environment for White,
just back from South America.
“The racism surprised me more than
anything,” she said. “I thought, ‘when
are we going to just be people instead
of white, black, brown or yellow?’”
White’s adventures didn’t stop af
ter she retired from the Portland
schools. She traveled to Spain and
spent a summer in Mexico to improve
her Spanish-speaking skills. Now she’s
a part time Spanish instructor at St.
John's School in Milwaukie.
White doesn’t seem to run out of
energy. She volunteers with a senior
citizen program and teaches at Craft
Mart in the evenings, in addition to
sharing her craft with YPOP students.
“I love it,” exclaimed White. “I en
joy the kids. They come because they
want to learn. I just enjoy teaching.”
Library clerk leaves behind co-workers and students
DANA PALMER
O’Driscoll has seen the li
brary advance technologically
as well, since she came to
Claudia O’Driscoll, Clackamas’ li Clackamas in 1982. At that time
brary cleric for 19 years, will retire this there was only one computer in
year, and leave behind students and the whole library, located in
co-workers she considers beloved.
the back room.
Prior to Clackamas, O’DriscolL
,‘‘I had to learn a lot about
worked for such public libraries as the computers,” she remarked. “I
Woodbum Public Library, Dickie Prai- didn’t think that I liked them but
rie and Rural Dale School. At now I have my own at home.”
Clackamas, O’Driscoll was in charge
When asked what aspect of
of inter-library loans and magazines, her work had been her least fa
as part ofher duties.
vorite, ODriscoll recounted an
The need to make a living and a aversion for numbers. This
long love oflibraries steered O’Driscoll distaste, common to book and
to her chosen field. A 1962 graduate English lovers, is the only ste
of San Jose (CA) State, O’Driscoll’s reotypical aspect of a library
major
simulta
worker that
neously prepared
O’Driscoll ap
her for, and deter
pears to em
I already miss
mined, her future ca
body.
interacting with
reer.
In fact,
“I graduated with
O’ Driscoll
students and
a bachelor’s degree
seems any
getting their ideas
in English Litera
thing but ste
ture,”
laughed
reotypical.
Claudia O'Driscoll
O’Driscoll, “sol was
While she be
library clerk
used to books.”
lieves
that
When asked to com
people envi
pare public libraries
sion librarians
to academic libraries,
as wearing
O’Driscoll had good things to say their hair in buns and glasses,
about both.
and constantly telling people
“I liked both,” she said. “Public li to be quiet, O’Driscoll was
braries were more of a social thing quick to state she does not fit
where people came to talk; there wasn’t that mold.
the heavy research. Academic librar
“I never tell anyone to be
ies are more cyclical, they get more quiet. I’m not quiet myself. It
people during the rush times such as is funny how long stereotypes
spring term.’*’
take to die,” she said. “It is
Despite the cyclical nature of aca hard to work against that.”
demic libraries, O’Driscoll, who seems
O’Driscoll says she has man
bright, upbeat and funny, recounted aged to retain her own person
stories that show that her years at ality and good humor. She
Clackamas have been anything but sports close-cropped hair, and
dull. She has seen the library undergo told the history ofher haircut.
tremendous changes, including ex
“I must say I did cut my hair
treme remodeling and construction quite a few years ago because
due to mold. That required all library I found myself wearing a bun,”
materials to be moved numerous times.
laughed O’Driscoll. “So I
“The library moves were unforget thought, ‘ok this isn’t going to
table,” said O’Driscoll. “The whole happen.’ So I cut my hair really
library was moved to trailers. It was a short.”
lot of work but it built muscles.”
O’Driscoll left Clackamas
Staff Writer
about a month ago and already
Claudia O'Driscoll,
misses the school.
library clerk, will
“I’ll miss the students and my
retire at the end of
fellow workers,” she said. “I al
fall term. O'Driscoh
ready miss interacting with stu
has dedicated 19
dents and getting the new ideas years to library
that they brought forth. It was ex
work, and was in
citing.”
»charge of
It appears the library will be qui
interlibrary loans
eter without O’Driscoll, but the
and magazines.
long-time library clerk does not in
After retiring, she
tend to let retirement slow her plans to spend
down. She has plans to kayak with
more time with her
her husband and their new puppy,
husband and her
and to continue her pottery work.
new puppy. She
And, when asked what book she
also wants to go
would choose if stranded on a
kayaking and
desert island, the ever-resource
continue her
ful library clerk had a quick answer.
pottery work.
“I would take War and Peace,"
O’Driscoll will be
said O’Driscoll. “It’s nice and long
missed by students
and was the book that I planned
and co-workers.
on reading upon retirement be
cause now I’ll have the time.”
MIKE POLLOCK / Clackamas Print
Wed.
Latin mèatballs
Thurs.
Fried chicken
Fri.
Curried
Name The New Cafe Contest!!
Help us name the new cafe and you will automatically
be entered to win a new color t. v.
All suggestions should be entered by Christmas break.
tuna' n'tomatoes
Mon.
Spinach beef macaroni
Tues.
A name will be selected and displayed during the grand
opening week when school resumes Winter Term 2001.
Winner will be contacted.
Chicken fried steak
Breakfast: 7-10:30 a.m.
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Hrs: 7 a.m.-8 p.m. Mon-Thurs; 7 a.m.-4p.m. Fri; 830a.m.-l p.m. Sat
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