{"id":1027,"date":"2015-09-25T06:04:56","date_gmt":"2015-09-25T13:04:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/?p=1027"},"modified":"2015-09-25T06:04:59","modified_gmt":"2015-09-25T13:04:59","slug":"going-back-to-bisbee-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/2015\/09\/25\/going-back-to-bisbee-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Going Back to Bisbee"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s Wednesday. \u00a0With my son, Bill J., at the wheel, we\u2019ve just left Phoenix heading for an event in Sierra Vista followed by two events in Bisbee, Arizona, my home town, where the mayor has declared September 23rd to be J.A. Jance Day. \u00a0I guess that means you really can go home again! \u00a0But as we drive through the flat dry desert of the Gila Reservation, it\u2019s hard to imagine that it rained last night. \u00a0Maybe not right here, but certainly in places all around here.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"The

The Divide, Mule Mountains, AZ. Photo by Everett Wittig.<\/p><\/div>\n

Like in Bisbee, for example. \u00a0The picture accompanying this blog, shot by former Bisbeeite Everett Wittig, was taken the day before yesterday when a late summer monsoon dumped more than an inch of rain on Bisbee and its surroundings. \u00a0The water is flowing down off Juniper Flats in an area of the Mule Mountains called the Divide. \u00a0People who live in other parts of the country often think of Arizona as a vast sand dune punctuated by the occasional saguaro. \u00a0The lush green area pictured here is less than a hundred miles from Tucson, and you\u2019ll notice there isn\u2019t a single saguaro in sight.<\/span><\/p>\n

So as we take this little four hour jaunt toward Bisbee, I\u2019m doing a meditation of sorts, on some of those Bisbee folks who made a huge impact on my life.<\/span><\/p>\n

First and foremost, there\u2019s LaVerne Williams. \u00a0She\u2019s somewhere north of 90 now, but I\u2019m sure she\u2019ll be in attendance tonight at Central School. \u00a0She was my Sunday School teacher at the Warren Community Church where she was also the junior choir director and the mover and shaker behind countless Christmas pageants. \u00a0Along with her partner-in-crime, Rose Bennett, LaVerne served as my Girl Scout leader from Brownies through Senior Scouts. \u00a0Occasionally I hear from fans who have visited Bisbee and stopped in at the Bisbee Museum where LaVerne still serves as a docent. \u00a0Believe me, the folks who talk with her come away from the museum having learned far more about Judy Busk Jance than they EVER wanted to know.<\/span><\/p>\n

The teachers in the Bisbee School District back then were exemplary. \u00a0Mrs. Spangler fueled my love of reading and set me on the path to becoming a writer. \u00a0Anthony Nadolski, my school principal for most of those years, was by far the best school principal I ever met. \u00a0Mrs. Medigovich, the senior English teacher, scared the daylights out of all of us, but she also challenged us to do our best. \u00a0An A in \u201cMedi\u2019s\u201d Senior English was my ticket into honors English classes at the University of Arizona. \u00a0And a note from Mr. Guerra, my Latin II teacher, written in red pencil at the bottom of the page on my paper about Servius Tullius read, \u201cResearch worthy of a college student.\u201d That was the first hint from anyone in my life that I might be college-worthy.<\/span><\/p>\n

And then there was Mrs. Riggins. \u00a0She was my home room teacher in high school, my journalism teacher, and the advisor for the school newspaper, the Copper Chronicle, when my friend, Pat McAdams Hall, and I were co-editors. \u00a0She had the patience of Job, and I still remember that her nails were always perfectly manicured. \u00a0All through college and even after I graduated, I would stop by to visit with Mrs. Riggins when I was in town during school breaks. \u00a0Once I started teaching, she never failed to ask me how things were going.<\/span><\/p>\n

My second year at Pueblo High School, I was assigned to the afternoon shift, teaching English to sophomores in seventy minute classes, four days a week. \u00a0One of the students, Fernando Camacho, was driving me nuts. \u00a0He was a long, lanky, surly kid who would saunter into the classroom after the bell and then, rather than going straight to his desk, he would meander over the the pencil-sharpener and endlessly sharpen his pencil before finally taking a seat. \u00a0Flopping into his chair, he gave every indication of being bored to tears, and he never once turned in any work. \u00a0By the time Christmas vacation rolled around, I was well on my way to flunking him.<\/span><\/p>\n

When I went to see Mrs. Riggins that year and she asked how things were going, I told her about Fernando. \u00a0At the end of my tale of woe she said, \u201cIf Fernando is failing as a student, then you are failing as a teacher. \u00a0If he\u2019s coming into your classroom every day and not paying attention to you, he must be paying attention to something. \u00a0You need to find out what\u2019s on his mind. \u00a0Make an appointment to talk to him\u2014not in the classroom or in your faculty office\u2014somewhere that\u2019s neutral ground, and try to find out more about him\u2014his interests, his life, whatever.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Having been given that sage advice, I went back to school after vacation and did just as Mrs. Riggins suggested. \u00a0I made an appointment with Fernando in the school parking lot where we talked for some time. \u00a0In the course of that conversation I learned that he was a drummer who spent his weekends playing with various bands around town. \u00a0When we left the parking lot, I took him to the library and found him a biography of Gene Krupa. \u00a0He read it and wrote a report on it\u2014the first book report he EVER did! \u00a0And I didn\u2019t flunk him, either.<\/span><\/p>\n

Years later, while we were teaching on the reservation, my former husband went to town to get a haircut at a local barber school. \u00a0When he came home, he said, \u201cI met one of your former students at the barbershop today.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNot Fernando Camacho!\u201d I said, but it was.<\/span><\/p>\n

As the barber was doing the haircut, he asked, \u201cDidn\u2019t your wife used to teach at Pueblo?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Janc allowed as how that was true.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cShe was the best teacher I ever had,\u201d Fernando said. \u00a0\u201cShe made a huge difference in my life.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Thank you, Mrs. Riggins. \u00a0Fernando may have given me the credit, but Rachel Riggins is the one who deserved it. \u00a0She saved Fernando Camacho by remote control. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And thank you, Bisbee, my home town. \u00a0It turns out I really can go home again. \u00a0It\u2019s terrific to be honored this way, but if I hadn\u2019t been going there today, I wouldn\u2019t have been thinking about Mrs. Riggins and Fernando Camacho, and I wouldn\u2019t have told you about them, either.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s Wednesday. \u00a0With my son, Bill J., at the wheel, we\u2019ve just left Phoenix heading for an event in Sierra Vista followed by two events in Bisbee, Arizona, my home town, where the mayor has declared September 23rd to be J.A. Jance Day. \u00a0I guess that means you really can go home again! \u00a0But as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[53,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bisbee","category-tour-2"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3nsBA-gz","jetpack_sharing_enabled":false,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1027"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1027\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1031,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1027\/revisions\/1031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}