A meeting of the ‘bored’ of education
Readers of the Observer-Reporter could not agree on what this meeting was about, but it certainly looks to be a meeting of the “bored” of education.
Almost all who emailed and called the newspaper in response to the current Mystery Photo were convinced all those in the photo were teachers or school administrators.
Most of those who contacted us recognized James W. Hanna as the man seated with glasses. Hanna was an elementary school principal in the Washington School District at the time the photo was taken in October 1972.
Hanna “was very involved in religious activities through the West Washington Methodist Church,” wrote Gary Ford. “Dr. Hanna was a great man. He was the youth group leader at West Washington when I was in high school in the ’60s. He died a sudden death while going to a Broadway show in New York years ago.”
Many of our readers also recognized the nun with the skeptical expression. At the time of the photo, Sister Frances de Chantal was a history and Latin teacher at Immaculate Conception High School. When she became a teacher and later director of Mount de Chantal Visitation Academy in Wheeling, W.Va., she was known as Sister Regina Slater. Born Mary Regina Slater in Delaware, she grew up in Washington in a house on East Beau Street, several readers related. She died in 1999.
The woman seated next to the late Sister Regina, glancing at her watch, is Marianne Kunst, who taught at Immaculate Conception in 1971 and 1972. “I taught there only for two years before getting my master’s degree,” Kunst said from her new home in Seneca, S.C. “Then I taught English and reading at Chartiers-Houston for 36 years, retiring in 2008.”
The man speaking was identified by at least four readers as Jack Robbins, an art and mechanical drawing teacher at I.C.
The two women in the foreground could not be identified, but the three at the table on the right are, from left, Emma Lee McMurtry, who taught at East Washington Elementary School; Barbara Sagona, a teacher at Clark School; and Pam Sindelar, who taught at 5th Ward.
Some who responded thought the meeting might be an educational seminar, or as Dr. Karen Kuzy suggested, a Business in Education meeting. But the most plausible explanation was provided by Bill Braun, who has served, off and on, on the Washington School Board for 44 years. He believes it was a meeting to introduce educators to plans for the new Washington Elementary Education Park, which replaced the district’s neighborhood schools. “I was at that meeting held on the second level of the George Washington Hotel, and it led to me being on the school board the following November, in 1973,” he said.
Braun said there were numerous educational meetings held on the proposed school, which was highly controversial. “Most of the complaints were about the poor location,” he said. “We spent a lot of money on that school. … But in the end, I guess, it had to be done.”
Observer-Reporter.