MR. HOUGH

Mr. Hough (David) was a history teacher at Washington high school. I had him as a freshman. I had him for 1st hour, during the 1st semester. I sat at a table with Mark Schreiber. Tammy Behrmann sat in front of me. Class of 1987's Doug Defere sat on my left.

I'll be up front. I thought Mr. Hough was an asshole. He was just mean. He was quick to snap at you, and tried to rule by fear. He did not relate well to students - at least in my opinion. Mr. Hough was one of the teachers who would belt out, "This ain't L.B. Clarke" at the drop of a hat. Geez... what a worm.

I had an occasion to speak to my 7th grade social studies teacher, Mr. Schambureck five years after I'd had him. He mentioned that everytime there was some sort of teachers' meeting within the school system, Mr. Hough would rant and rave about how horrible L.B. Clarke was, and how much of a discipline problem the students were.

I must say that Mr. Hough did have the occasional good side as well. One day, we had one of the group home kids in our class. He was chewing gum. Hough told him, "Hey guy, get rid of the gum." The kid (I can't recall his name) answered back, "It's not gum. And my name ain't Guy." The two of them exchanged a few more words. Then Hough escorted him out of there. As he was leaving, the kid said, "By the way, it was gum." We didn't see him again for three days. But when Hough came back from Mr. Wood' office, he was jovial. He was joking around and was a delight. Those days were rare.

Hough showed us some slides from when he visited one of the WWII concentration camps in Germany. He even had a picture from inside one of the "ovens." He said it had a bad odor.

Hough used to mock his students sometimes. I recall Mark and I sitting and listening to one of his lectures, when he suddenly (in a "dumb" voice) said, "I don't need to take note because I have a photographic memory." Of course Mark and I (and anyone else who wasn't taking notes) immediately got out their pens and papers. It sucked sitting at a table near the front of the room.

If memory serves, Hough was into photography. I think he was in charge of the photo club - or whatever it was called.

Hough was completely bald. He may not have had hair anywhere on his face. I can't recall. He always reminded me of former wrestler Baron Von Raschke. See the photo below, and tell me I'm wrong.



Dave Svatek told me that Mr. Hough used to be in charge of leading all the pep rallies at the school. But he would get the kids so wound up and rowdy, that the school stopped him from doing it. I have no idea if that's true.

In November of 1985, I missed a week of school. I wasn't sick. But I played one at home. Anyway, my dad picked up my homework from school. I glanced at it all, but did nothing. Anyway, Hough provided a list of "materials" for which I should find information on. Not one single thing he listed was in our textbook. What the hell? Perhaps he discussed them in class. But it seemed like an awful lot of work. I ended up not doing any of it.

I ended up getting a "D" in his class. I never had him as a teacher again. Although I did run into him many times at the video store. He was always friendly. I think he carried a backpack wherever he went. Today I think he's retired from teaching. But I could be wrong.

Thanks to Shannon Koch for providing this photo of Mr. Hough. You can see him here kneeling in front of the graduates, at the ceremony on June 4th, 1989.