WASHINGTON HIGH SCHOOL TWO RIVERS WI CLASS OF 1989

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

MR. STAPLETON

Mr. Stapleton was a math teacher at Clarke. I can't recall is first name. I think he primarily taught 8th grade. But I could be wrong about that.

Stapleton's room was in the southeast corner of Clarke, on the end of the six-room section, right next to Mr. Longhini's room.

I never had Stapleton for a teacher. I think some kids really liked the guy. That surprised me. Because he always seemed like a tough disciplinarian type. But others thought he was cool - I think. So who knows.

See Brad Strouf's comments in Steve Cook's entry for a story about him.

Stapleton was sort of tall and thin. He also had a beard. He reminded me a lot of a late-1950's bongo-playing in a smoky nightclub beatnik. Perhaps it's because he would often refer to students as "cats." Something tells me he was Irish. I have a vague memory of him wearing some sort of giant Irish hat on St. Patrick's Day. I also remember seeing his son in school one day. If memory serves, his son looked to be my age. He also looked to be the troublemaking sort. Of course I could be totally off base.

I don't know where Stapleton is today. He's probably retired. If I'm not mistaken, his wife was a substitute teacher as well. As much as I didn't want to at the time, I kind of wish I'd had him as a teacher.

UPDATE 8/2/06 - Thanks to Brad for reminding me that Stapleton's first name was Patrick. I may have been wrong about the young man I thought was his son. It looks like Mr. Stapleton and his wife (who do appear to reside in Two Rivers to this day) do have two sons. But neither of them are close to my age. They are about 15 years younger.

2 Comments:

At Thu Aug 03, 07:32:00 AM PDT, Blogger THE GOON said...

Right on Brad. Mr.Stapleton was one of the few teachers that I actually liked. The man was strict as hell. I don't think we really ever had any conversations outside of class. I had BJ,Ben Franco,Jim Bergstrom & maybe 7 or 8 others in his class. I laughed when Burt reminded me of him calling his students CATS. Does anyone remember his great quote "This ain't no party, This ain't no disco, This ain't no foolin' around"?
He also would play Creedence Clearwater Revival on a little cassete player for us when we were working on tests. I don't think it was really for our benefit though. Who cares, tunes during school are cool. (Hey that sounded neat)

 
At Sun Oct 10, 01:07:00 PM PDT, Blogger Unknown said...

Ah, he was Stapes to those of us on the WHS track (and CC) team during the early-mid '70;s -- graduated in '75. Got to believe he was one of the finest coaches the school ever had. And a fine man. If he was tough, it was because he cared.

 

Post a Comment

<< Home