The passing of an early mentor

I graduated from Shortridge High School, the oldest high school in Indianapolis. I am proud of that, and the tradition of excellence that produced the likes of Richard Lugar, Indiana’s senior U.S. senator, and the late Kurt Vonnegut.

Another product of the school’s great tradition was Jean Grubb, class of 1920. Miss Grubb not only was a product of the school, she went on to teach at Shortridge. She died two weeks at age 106. At the time of her death, Miss Grubb was the oldest living Shortridge grad.

In the mid-1940s, years before I was born, Miss Grubb, who had a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern, was convinced to give up teaching math in addition to journalism and become the director of publications at Shortridge. It was a big deal. Like most schools, Shortridge had a yearbook. But like few in the country – only four others in the late 1960s – Shortridge had a daily student newspaper.

A daily newspaper. The Shortridge Daily Echo.

Miss Grubb was the faculty supervisor of the daily publication when Sen. Lugar wrote a column for the Thursday edition of the paper in the early 1950s and was still doing it years later when I wrote columns in my sophomore and junior years. As a senior, I was on the yearbook staff.

The Echo had a different staff of student editors and writers for each day so no student was overburdened.

In my second year of high school, a friend, Allen Carroll, and I wrote a gossip column called Spooe, under the byline of Chester and Chauncey. I was Chauncey. It was the first writing I ever had published. To this day it amazes me that none of my classmates ever figured out what Spooe meant until the end of the school year when we told them. Another friend, Kerry Kirch, and I wrote a column with a cartoon during my junior year.

I have lost touch with Allen but Kerry, who is now a published author, and I keep in contact.

I remember Miss Grubb as a great advisor, teacher and mentor. I perhaps wouldn’t be a writer today without her guidance so many years ago.

I last saw her last month at an all-school reunion for the rededication and opening of Shortridge as a high school. (It was closed in the 1980s and later reopened as a middle school.) The dedication was the day before her birthday. She was frail and in a wheelchair but was glad to be among so many of the students whose lives she had touched for so many years.

She was a great lady who loved teaching and writing, and who loved Shortridge.

Her family has my deepest sympathy and my gratitude.

Thanks for reading and keep writing.