Thursday, June 17, 2010

Miss Arabella Odell

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During our time at EHHS Miss Odell, as she was known to us, was effectively the Dean of Girls even though her title was Senior Counselor. I don’t know how you might have seen Miss Odell, but since I had little reason to interact with her, my impressions were limited to a few brief exchanges. From those exchanges I’ve believed her all these years to have been something of a crusty old woman.

In 1963, Miss Odell was only 2-years older than we are now in 2010...somehow she doesn't seem quite so old from today's perspective. She passed away in 1985 at the age of 89.

Recently, I ran across a good site being run by a member of the 1959 Handley HS class. Many of our teachers were transfers from the old HHS and one of those HHS ’59 graduates recalled Miss Odell in a way that I never saw her.

“One of the things that impressed me the most about our HHS education was the professionalism of our senior English teacher, Miss Odell. Thanks to her I was able to write well enough to pass college classes. Thank You, Miss Odell, for teaching us to write a term paper properly. Do you remember memorizing a hundred lines of poetry? What I remember the most about her was how she taught us Shakespeare. I think it was MACBETH or something like that, and she would quote a passage from memory, turn around, walk to her desk, and about 30 seconds later the bell would ring to end class. She was some teacher; really, more like a college professor. She inspired me toward a teaching career.” (Richard Clark HHS ’59)

I stand corrected. (Gus).  Below is the dedication page for the 1942 Handley High School yearbook.



Adios

2 comments:

Paul S. said...

Gus, I recall Miss Odell about the same way you do as a prickly old woman. In a senior class meeting Miss Odell filibustered our choice of a class song. We voted for "Days of Wine and Roses" and Miss Odell was having none of it.

Mr. Sills had taught us a bit about parliamentary procedure in his government classes and introduced us to "Robert's Rules of Order" so I interrupted Miss Odell to ask if we were using RRO to govern our meeting, to which she said, yes. So, I moved the previous question, which was a parliamentary equivalent to saying "shut up" and vote on the issue at hand...Days of Wine, etc. or Miss Odell's favorite, Climb Every Mountain.

Miss Odell looked as though I had doused her with cold water and told me to sit down, thus announcing I suppose, that she had suspended RRO in this case. For me, it was an early introduction that rules and fair play can be easily brushed aside by anyone in a position of situational authority who finds rules and fair play inconvenient for their immediate purposes.

When "Animal House" came out years later, I understood perfectly Dean Wormer's "double secret probation." Paul S.

Anonymous said...

Miss Odell...the English credit I needed to graduate with you guys, she said ok less than one hour before I got my diploma that night. LOL. She well knew what sort of aggravation I was. She loved my Mom though...Mom was a valedictorian that Miss Odell had taught. Turned out, much later I discovered when tested in college, I am very dyslexic. Meaning creative. Gee, I was not dumb, only because there is a name for me...cheers. And still took up valuable engineers time. Sure hope it does not come to a nuclear implosion as a fix, for some frightening methane reasons. I do lose some sleep trying to figure out how to fix this...same as 100's of k's of other "chatter".