Thirteen members of the original staff of the Yosemite Union High School District are still working there 20-plus years later. They have many things in common: A sense of family, the shared experience of helping start a new school district and an appreciation of their 20 years or more at the district.

 "I'm one of the most fortunate people in the world to have been able to have an educational career that put me in the small community of Woodlake for six years and then in Oakhurst for 20 years," comments David Read, Yosemite High School assistant principal. His sentiments are shared by many of his peers who make such comments as:

 · "It's been a good 20 years; an eventful and emotional time (good and bad). The ties are tighter and more significant." - Valinda Clevenger, counselor.

 · "This has been my life for 22 years and I've been blessed beyond anything I thought I'd ever have in work and in my personal life. I'd do it all over again without hesitation." - Buddy Cudd, supervisor of maintenance, operation and transportation.

 · "My 20 years here were excellent. I was so blessed - I loved the kids, their parents and the staff. I would do it all over again in a heartbeat." -Barry Bartlett, counselor, retired 1995 after 20 years.

 · "It's been a challenging career because of so much change. No one can complain too much here. You make it whatever you put into it." -Dennis Otterson, teacher.

 · "When I was hired, I decided I would give thanks every day for being here, and I have. These are my best friends in the world (the rest of the staff), they are just like family. We're all so happy to be here. There's never been a day when I wanted to be anywhere else." - Ellen Peterson, teacher and coach.

 · "I wouldn't teach anywhere else - the kids are so good and the successes are many and that's what we're here for." -Eric Hansen, teacher and coach.

 · "There have been a lot of interesting times, hard times and good times. In all, the staff and community are wonderful to work with and for." -Lou Ann Wisseman, confidential secretary.

 · "My family and I moved here with the expectation that we were moving to the best place in the world and I've not been let down. It has proven to be much more than the best place in the world." Curt Campbell, alternative education principal.

 · "They've been a fantastic 20 years. I wouldn't trade them for anything. It's the best place to be with the best group of people," -Kevyn Moberly, maintenance foreman.

 Many of the staff members recalled how hard they all worked when the school first opened. They were all supposed to make three home visits a year to their "advisees" and, as Mr. Hansen points out, that was a lot of home visits: "I had 33 students, so I was to do 99 visits a year." Mr. Otterson says they all worked so hard that they were physically and mentally exhausted by Christmas.

 After that, it became a more traditional campus and there were not so many demands on the staff. "It was too much work for the staff they had," he says, speaking of the goals the district had for home visits and small classes. "The ideal and the practical didn't match," he said. Mr. Bartlett agrees that too much was expected: "It was too much for the advisors to do the home visits, teach and get their supplies ordered" as the new school opened.

The original staff members have mixed views of the vision and goals of the district. Mr. Read says "We came with a missionary zeal because what we were going to do was such a departure, but we didn't do a very good job of selling our mission to the community. We spent a couple of years shifting gears and becoming a 'real high school'." He goes on to say that what is being advocated in education today is what they were trying to do 20 years ago. "We were 20 years ahead of time," Mr. Read believes.

 However, he says, "all of the new fads and buzz words come and go but it's the good teacher in the classroom who gets the job done every time."

 Ms. Clevenger says the pendulum has swung in the other direction from the vision: "We are now very organized, very orderly, very structured." She said she did not understand the vision when she came, she thought it would be a traditional school.

 Mr. Cudd says if it was being done over again, and he had any say, it wouldn't start with open space, but would have started more traditionally and then evolved into the open space theory. "Open space was too much too fast to throw on the teachers and kids," he says, "the staff was wonderful but we wore them out."

 He goes on to say that the students didn't feel as disorganized as the staff did. "It didn't hurt their educational process. They've gone on and done fine."

 Mr. Bartlett says the frustration with the buildings was a major challenge to the new district. He notes that the teachers had seen the buildings but did not anticipate what it would really be like.

 "The downfall of the system was that they didn't have an alternative for the students who couldn't handle the new methods," he said. However, when partitions were put up, that also frustrated some students. "They thought the distractions were good because there are distractions in the real world," Mr. Bartlett says. "We should have had alternatives." When Yosemite High School opened, it was a very non-traditional campus. Staff members recall some of the differences:

 When the district started, they wanted every student to have a short-term objective or what they wanted from a class. They were very involved in their own education, saying what they wanted to get from a given class. "The concept was really good," Mr. Bartlett says, "If a kid is learning what they want to learn, they will do better. Kids need to be involved." The students also had long-range plans which could be changed. Mr. Bartlett says this was "very cumbersome for teachers and advisers. Unfortunately, it was too much. Education tries to come back to these ideas from time to time if they can afford it."

Students changed classes every two weeks, receiving one-half credit per class. "This was too much turmoil, so we changed it," Mr. Hansen recalls. After two months, they went to a six-week schedule.

 In the beginning, the teachers came up with names for their classes and taught the classes they wanted to teach, such as skateboarding, hiking and rock climbing. The students gave their own grades. "Most were very good, but some took advantage," Mr. Hansen says.

 Teachers were called "learning facilitators" and this caused some people to think they were not real teachers, Mr. Hansen recalls.

 Teachers were also called by their first name by many students, recalls Betsy Blum, librarian. She also recalls that while it was a smoke-free staff, the students were "smoking up a storm. It's not politically correct now, but at that time it was prevalent among students."

 The process of hiring that first staff was very intense. There were over 1000 applicants for 14 teaching positions, Mr. Hansen recalls. He said he had three interviews for his job and the staff that was hiring teachers even visited his home. "You felt good if you were hired, knowing the numbers," he said.

 Among those on the hiring team were Mr. Bartlett and Mr. Cudd. They both recall the effort that was put into finding the best staff possible.

 "The biggest challenge was hiring the staff. We wanted teachers who would do a good job but also wanted people who liked kids and wanted to be around kids," Mr. Bartlett says.

 Mr. Cudd recalls reading hundreds of applications to determine if applicants were eligible and then coming up with a list of the best qualified. As they got down to the last applicants, they went to visit them wherever they lived. "We spent quite a bit of time doing this," he recalls.

 Mr. Otterson says the new district only hired people "who were very interested in kids and we have kept to this as best we can."

 Many of the original staff members are sorry that they have lost the close personal contact they had with students when there were less than there are now. Ms. Clevenger recalls the early days and says she was the closest to her students that she's ever been. She had 28 students as advisees and visited their homes twice a year.

 Mike Cole, teacher, says "it was nice to have the small school like we did initially because the teachers got to know each student personally. In a way, it's sad now because we don't get to know them." He says he hopes in the future the district can stay relatively small, possibly with a new school in the area, "so we don't have to face some of the problems bigger high schools face, although it's probably inevitable that we'll grow and have to deal with some of these challenges."

 Mr. Read says the biggest change he has seen in the district is the atmosphere of the relationships between the students and adults on campus. "I believe it has to do with the size of the school," he says. "The break comes at about 600 students. It no longer has the family atmosphere and you don't know everybody."

 Ms. Peterson recalls her advisor groups when she "mother-henned" about 25 students. She says they got to know the students and their families well and it was "a great situation." "We've shared 21 years of life with fellow staff and families of the students we've advised," she comments.

 While many things have changed in the district, many agree that the students have not changed.

 "Young people haven't changed as much as some people think," Mr. Cole observes. "Kids are still kids."

 "The students haven't changed that much," Ms. Clevenger says. "They're still making remarkable growth. It's wonderful to watch them mature. They've been through a lot of phases in dress and attitude."

 Ms. Peterson agrees: "Kid's don't change - they are so creative and dedicated. They have jobs, do sports, do school work, they're busy and they're productive." Mr. Hansen says "students are basically the same from the first year to the present."

 When the school first started, salaries were very low and some of the staff members recall what those days were like.

 Mr. Moberly remembers that in mid-year of the first year, everyone got a $40 per month raise and "it was really a great thing."

 Ms. Clevenger says "We were all young and we were all poor. There was no housing. We lived in trailers or shared houses."

 Some of the staff had children who had attended Sierra High School, and some of the staff are graduates of SHS. Mr. Cudd and Shirley McClennen, director of food service, both graduated from Sierra as did both of her daughters.

 Ms. Wisseman recalls moving to Oakhurst in 1974 and being shocked to learn there was no high school. Her oldest child went to Sierra for a year and a half, leaving home between 5 and 5:30 a.m. and returning about 12 hours later. "It was sure a relief when the school opened," she remembers.

 Mr. Cudd had previously worked for Sierra High School, driving school bus and doing a variety of jobs in school operations. Although he attended Sierra, his three children were able to graduate from Yosemite High.

 Many of the staff have personal stories to share that help give a flavor of what it was like in 1976.

 Mr. Moberly recalls being the youngest on the staff, at 19, and being called "The Kid" by other staff members. As the gray hairs came in, however, they stopped calling him that, he says with a laugh. He remembers going to work at the school when his first baby was two months old. "Twenty-one years later, I have another two month old son," he says.

 Ms. Clevenger has fond memories of running deer off the volleyball court when they practiced outside in the acorns. She also remembers teaching skateboarding, mountain climbing and backpacking for physical education classes.

 Recalling her youthful "naiveté" she tells of asking the architect if she could see the plans for the gym and locker rooms. "I re-drew them to be more efficient and use space better," she says, "I remember drawing them up and turning them in with a smile."

 Ms. Clevenger also recalls that she and Ms. Peterson were the only two women coaches and when they were told they could order whatever they needed for the athletic programs, they were very practical and ordered one uniform that would be used for all girls' sports. On the other hand, the men ordered different uniforms for every sport, she says.

Ms. Peterson thoroughly enjoys recalling the journey to her employment at the district. "I believe the Lord brought me here," she said recently. She relates how she learned of the openings at the school the day before the deadline for applications. The day of the deadline, she got in her car and drove to Oakdale, arriving at the school at 4:45 p.m. She told the secretary she was there to apply for a job at the new high school, only to be told there was no new high school.

 Crestfallen, she returned to her car and looked at the application again only to find that she was supposed to be in Oakhurst. She said she went back into the office sobbing. The secretary volunteered to call Oakhurst and explain the situation. The secretary in Oakhurst said she would tack an application to the door and if it was under the door the next morning, it would be considered.

 Ms. Peterson then began the drive from Oakdale to Oakhurst, arriving well after dark. She found her application and then went to the only lighted area in town, the telephone booth at the Chevron station, and filled out the papers.

 She later had occasion to meet Paul and Martha Pitman, leaders in the effort to form the new district, and told them her story.

 When she returned to the school where she was substitute teaching, she sat in the teacher lounge and listened to teachers there talking about applying for the job at the "new high school in Oakhurst." She said she felt so unqualified as she listened to them talk about their professionally - prepared applications.

 Eventually, the call came for an interview. When she walked into the room, someone commented that this was "the little girl who went to Oakdale." Once again, she felt inadequate, until she heard Barry Bartlett say "Anyone who wants a job that bad is our type of person."

 Not only was she hired, but the first graduating class selected her to speak at the graduation ceremony.

 Ms. McClennen recalls the days when there was a full cafeteria and restaurant on campus and they remained open during and after athletic events so the public and students could stop and eat. She says she would like to see the school have a cafeteria again so the students would have a place to eat.

 There are several memories for Mr. Hansen: An airplane crash on the football field (no one was hurt); deer on the football field; on the first bus trip, a volleyball game in Mariposa, the bus hit a Black Angus on the road and did substantial damage to the bus; wrestling practice on a borrowed mat on the football field. He fondly recalls being called about midnight last year by some former students who were at a wedding reception and wanted him to come join them for a visit.

 He remembers what that first year was on a personal level: He lived in a 19-foot trailer and showered in the district trailer because he didn't have any water, he was building a home, starting a football program, getting the school going and teaching classes, and his wife had just been involved in the Chowchilla busnapping case (she had gotten off the bus just before it was highjacked).

 "Other than that, it wasn't too bad," he says, "but when you're young you can do it."

 Ms. Blum recalls her embarrassment when two students pulled a name-switch on her and carried it out, with the assistance of their classmates, for a full grade period. When report card time came, however, there was a vast difference in the two students' grades, so the one who had earned the good grade confessed. "Then I didn't believe them," she says. "I was embarrassed to have been conned so easily."

 Mr. Campbell said his years at the district have been great, in the good times and the bad. "There was never a consideration to go anywhere else," he said. "I've made a commitment to the alternative education program and that is where I will stay. Oakhurst offers a lot more than money," he comments.

 He goes on to say that he and his family were looking for a place that respected the quality of individuals and the right to self-determination "and we've found it."

 "I love my job, I love the students and I love the people I work with," Mr. Campbell said, "You can't ask for anything better."

 The staff members are very proud of the successes of the students at the high school. Mr. Bartlett notes that graduates of YHS have gone to Stanford, University of California and other major universities, "but that's not important," he says, "it's in the person, not the school." He says he can't stress enough that students need fundamentals and basics, "but most of all, they need to feel good about having been here, they need to feel they accomplished something."

 He says this good feeling comes from the environment of the school: "It's the gardeners, the bus drivers, the teachers, it's the people who make them feel good about being there. The ones who go on are the ones who've had a good experience and believe they can do it."

 He notes that there are a number of graduates who have become medical doctors and attorneys, who have earned doctorates in various fields and many have become teachers "which is a direct compliment to the teachers they had."

 Mr. Hansen says one of the things that makes him feel good about teaching and the students is that "usually it all comes out well in the end. When I see a student having a tough time, I know it will be all right. They become gainfully employed and are successful and that makes you feel good as a teacher. It makes you feel good to see your students succeed."

 Mr. Bartlett sums up what many of the original staff seem to believe: "I'm really proud of the high school - there are excellent people doing a really good job. Students who apply themselves here can go on and do anything, they have the opportunity to do that here."