Sensational Seniors – August 2018

The “Sensational Senior” candidate for this month is arguably Jacksonville’s best known and loved citizen, who through 51 years of teaching has positively impacted thousands of young lives. As always, my approach is to start from the beginning, and in Larry’s case, his was on July 3, 1940 when he and his twin brother, Lloyd, were born in Los Angeles. Larry’s parents had moved from Kalispell, Montana after his dad read an advertisement in Mechanics Illustrated for a private school in Los Angeles to train people for the aircraft industry. His parents packed everything they could in their car and headed for Los Angeles, which in September 1939 was warm, beautiful and provided fresh fruit and vegetables year-round. Larry’s father took classes at the school, “California Flyers,” and landed a job with Douglas Aircraft as a tool and die maker just as World War II broke out.

The end of the war saw many war-industry plant closures, and Los Angeles had lost its “Shangri-La” appeal for Larry’s parents, so they started looking for a place to relocate. Larry’s mother’s family (the Rasmussens) were North Dakota farmers but one of them had left the rugged North Dakota climate and discovered a little Mecca in Southern Oregon’s Fern Valley. Other family members followed suit, settling in and around Jacksonville. Larry smiles when remembering a great uncle Rasmussen thinking Ashland would be a good place to live, but on his first visit, when he got out of the car, his hat blew off and, having had enough wind in North Dakota, settled in Jacksonville.

The family draw was enough to convince Larry’s parents to move to the Rogue Valley, and Larry remembers that when they arrived here in 1945, “There were 100 Rasmussen relatives in a 10-mile radius of Jacksonville.” The Smith family settled halfway between Phoenix and Talent; his dad went to work for Snyder’s Dairy and his mother worked for Harry and David. The first year in the Rogue Valley, the Smith family lived in a tent house while his father, with no building experience, checked-out a couple library books and proceeded to build them a house. Larry relates, “We had to haul our water that first year and use an outdoor toilet, but we felt very fortunate to have electricity.” Larry remembers starting school at Phoenix Elementary, and at six years old he and his brother “walked the one mile to school along Highway 99, oblivious to the traffic.” Larry and his brother were to attend all 12 years of school in Phoenix, graduating from Phoenix High School in 1958.

The next educational step for Larry and Lloyd came at Southern Oregon College where, at their father’s urging, they took a pre-engineering course of study even though both young men were not that enthused about math. The rest of their higher education had a rather serendipitous beginning as best remembered by Larry, “My dad by now was working for Tucker Sno-Cat, and one day he saw on top of a large trash can a mailing from the R.J. LeTourneau Manufacturing Company in Texas that had an advertisement for the Christian-based Letourneau Technical Institute. Dad thought this would be just the ticket for Lloyd and me. Mother got us on the mailing list for the monthly publication, contacted the college, even filled out our applications, bought us matching sheets and found us a church.” R.G. LeTourneau was a friend and contemporary of Billy Graham, and had a magnetic personality which was only equaled by his strong faith. In addition to being a technical school, the college was also a Bible school, so Larry and Lloyd got a strong biblical background as well as a degree in engineering, graduating in 1963.

Even though Larry and Lloyd had engineering degrees, they ventured away from that field in search of another lifetime career. The first stop for Larry was to the University of Nebraska where he was to receive training as a Peace Corps volunteer in Columbia, but that venture ended when Larry was unable to pass the Spanish language proficiency test and that, according to Larry, “Was the best thing that ever happened to me, because it led me to a career in teaching.”

Prior to leaving for the University of Nebraska and while at the family’s church, The Ashland Assembly of God, he met Linda Reb from Williams, Oregon. Larry remembers, “She had the most remarkable eyes, and I first fell in love with those eyes and then Linda.” While the first meeting was only a brief encounter, when Larry returned home and proclaimed, “I think I’ll become a teacher,” he and Linda re-connected at the urging of their pastor. They joined the church choir, started going to Southern Oregon College together and spent evening hours studying in the college library. Linda’s mother fixed many dinners for Larry and finally quizzed him, “Are you ever going to marry my daughter?” After three years of dating, they married on June 18, 1966 and now have celebrated 52 years together with two adult children, Brian and Amber, and seven grandchildren.

Larry’s first teaching plan was to be a high school history teacher, but his college advisor advised, “Forget being a history teacher; they are a dime a dozen.” This resulted in Larry entering the Elementary Education program at SOC, which he says, “Was the best decision I could have made, for I had 33 marvelous years teaching at Jacksonville Elementary School.” While doing his student teaching at Roosevelt Elementary in Medford, the Jacksonville Elementary School principal visited his classroom, interviewed him on the spot and offered him a job teaching 5th graders. Larry remembers, “My 5th grade class was located in the old broken down Jacksonville school with a leaky roof and very little heat, but I loved it. For nearly every year I taught, I had someone from the Rasmussen family in my class, so I would always start the year using the Rasmussen family tree as an example of how families develop throughout the years.” Encouraged and challenged by a SOC education professor, Dr. Irene Hollenbeck, to expand his classroom outside the four walls and to “take your students outside to look at a tree, not just look at a leaf,” Larry became locally, statewide and even nationally known for his “Opening the World” teaching philosophy and action plan. Jacksonville was the ideal setting for his outside focus. “When I started teaching we had a world-class museum two blocks from our school, and the history of gold mining in and around Jacksonville provided a rich historical perspective that my students could experience firsthand. If I needed cow eyeballs for a science study, I’d just put in a request for them at Gary West Meats, and the variety and abundance of trees in Jacksonville provided wonderful field trip opportunities which expanded into videotaping and teaching photography, complete with a dark room. Jacksonville was an absolute canvas for teaching.”

With the introduction of technology into the classroom and at home, Larry feared the tradition of letter writing would be lost, so he developed an extensive pen pal program for his students with pen pals on the east coast, in Holland and Japan. Because of Larry’s interest in Jacksonville history, he developed a close relationship with Robbie Collins, the person mainly responsible for Jacksonville being placed on the National Historic Register and for preserving some 200 historic Jacksonville buildings. Every year, he would have all his students write Robbie Collins a letter explaining who they were and what their plans were for the school year. Robbie responded by his own letters and would send items to the class or he would often arrive unannounced to Larry’s classroom. Then, at the end of the school year, he enjoyed hosting Larry and his class for a party at his home, always with kid-friendly fare.

Larry, who retired from teaching in 2000, still continues to serve as a substitute teacher for the Medford School District. In addition, he often is called upon by local elementary schools to lead Jacksonville historic field trips which have the students out for six hours, walking almost eight miles. He has a simple teaching style with two rules for the students: “Keep your hands to yourself and shut up when you don’t need to talk.” During his Jacksonville Elementary teaching days, Larry and his students were to receive five national awards. A number of them grew out of the students’ involvement with the Jacksonville Woodlands Association, an organization that Larry helped form. Larry is especially proud of the all-volunteer effort of the Jacksonville Woodlands Association and serves as its unpaid Executive Director.

The Jacksonville Mayor has officially appointed Larry as the “Town Historian” and each year, during the Victorian Christmas celebration, Larry serves as the official “Town Crier.” In addition to serving on the Jacksonville Budget Committee, Larry continues his commitment to Crater Lake National Park, an effort that started when he was 21. During his teaching years, Larry and Linda moved the family to Crater Lake for the summer, providing an amazing playground for Brian and Amber. This 56-year devotion to Crater Lake continues with him running the Park’s winter volunteer program.

At 78, Larry Smith shows no signs of slowing down; his preferred mode of transportation is walking, and he remains a man of faith and vision, and is an inspiration to us all.

Featured image: Larry and Linda Smith