"MR. ELMS"

CLOVIS JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL REMEMBERED! (1947)

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We knew him simply as: "Mr. Elms." That was enough. If we'd known his first name, we wouldn't have used it anyway. He wasn't a "mean" guy by any means---it's just that you instinctively knew not to fool around with Mr. Elms! You see, he had "gravitas," fifty years before we'd ever heard the word.

He was our junior high school wood-shop teacher. It was kind of a "rite of passage" for most junior high boys, to reach the eighth grade and take "shop." Didn't have to sit there anymore in an old boring seventh grade class and hear those distant (right behind the school), cool, and fascinating electric tools ---crying out with electronic joy for their existence! We eighth graders just joined up when it was time! Mr. Elms was some kind of an icon for us, I think.

He was around six feet tall, maybe six-one, with a slightly receding hairline.  Thin and wiry, most certainly a rugged sort of guy.  He had a serious mien about him. (We never had punch and cookies in class!)    He was inscrutable---a perfect face for Mount Rushmore! (And most of us would like to see him there!)

He had a strong firm jaw and chin. Sometimes when he was lecturing, maybe explaining a dangerous tool, his jaw would seem to get very tight, and I believe he may have drawn a breath through his teeth a few times, as if to emphasize the danger. (Particularly when using electric equipment.)

One of my fellow classmates of sixty-five years ago remembers: "His no-nonsense firmness is probably the reason there were few, if any, accidents by the young carpenters. He kept a sharp eye on what was going on, monitored the "tool shed" closely, and just did his job! As I recall, we usually had thirty-five to forty in our shop class...unheard of today."

The shop was large and filled with square work tables. There was a tool room on one side, enclosed with wire mesh and locked in off hours. It had a window for checking out tools for class. At the beginning of a semester, we'd sit all around on those square carpentry tables and Mr.Elms would lecture and describe every tool in the shop.

He'd get to the more serious and dangerous electric machines: the rip saw, the band saw, the jig saw; then the drill press, the sander, and the lathes! The lathes were the most popular machines in the shop. They were less dangerous, fun to operate, and I daresay few boys ever took shop without doing a lathe project. Had that shop been producing "Billy Clubs" for law enforcement in the state of New Mexico, there would have likely been a glut! As I recall, there were five or six lathes in the shop.

Finally Mr. Elms would get to the electric planer. It was obvious that he considered it the most dangerous machine. Only he was allowed to use it, and he always had a pusher made of blocks to keep the fingers as far from that circular cylinder-like blade. Most of the kids didn't use the electric equipment that much. (Someone helped me use the router on my table project---to edge the table top, and round off the legs.)

Other favorite projects included lamps (lots of lamps), bookshelves, tables, tackle boxes, shoe shine kits, and necktie racks. To this day, I still have my table and a shoe shine box my dad used for years.

Yes, our teacher ran a taut ship. Maybe on the principle that strong, but benevolent discipline, means safety and better learning. I never heard a boy who took shop who didn't love it, make useful projects, and admire Mr. Elms.

The years went by and I didn't see Mr. Elms again until in the 90's. One day I was visiting a friend in a nursing home there in Clovis, and he apparently was leaving at the same time. He saw me and hailed me across that big lawn and came kind of running over to see me. (Wow, he recognized me!!) We found a bench and sat down and had a nice long talk, laughing and remembering those great old days, right after WWII when he taught shop to all those boys.

He told me he'd never specialized in shop or planned to teach it. One day he saw a notice somewhere saying: "SHOP TEACHER NEEDED: JUNIOR HIGH." He just applied, got the job, did some boning-up on the subject and was off and running. I saw him one other time, but that day on the bench was special.

I don't know how many years or how many classes he taught in junior high shop, but he must have taught hundreds of students.  Guys my age still talk about those days.

So, this is A TRIBUTE TO VIRGIL ELMS, a Christian gentleman and scholar; a dedicated, diligent, competent, and responsible teacher---one that all the boys loved. You were a gift to the world; you influenced a lot of lives for good.

WE REMEMBER YOU WITH FONDNESS.

Mil's 8th-grade shop project

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BY MIL

6/29/12

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