Dr. Mel Beech
Tribute to a Great Teacher
Dr. Beech's 90th Birthday Celebration - November 17, 2020
50th Anniversary of 6th Grade Class - Star News - 2016
In the foggy mists of time, Pasadena Unified School District version, before busing for integration, a very few campuses were “naturally” desegregated.
That is, they were schools surrounded by neighborhoods in which black families, white families, Latino families and Asian families lived together. They sent their kids to the school down the block, and it all worked out fine.
In Pasadena, Altadena and Sierra Madre, the cities and town of the PUSD, nefarious school board members gamed the system by gerrymandering junior high and high school attendance.
White kids in the Linda Vista neighborhood, for instance, who had their own school through grade 6, were not sent on to Washington Junior High, by far the closest to their homes, but way down South Lake Avenue to McKinley, because … because the racist. then-all white school board drew the maps, that’s why.
Washington was almost all-black in the 1960s. McKinley — and Eliot Junior High — were naturally somewhat integrated, because the school board had to send kids somewhere, but mostly white; Wilson and Marshall junior highs in east Pasadena were well over 90 percent white.
It was really hard to gerrymander an elementary district, though, with a straight face. Too small to draw crazy lines around or draw in kids from miles away — most of us walked to school, if not through drifting snow, then through heat and smog.
Altadena Elementary, just west of Lake Avenue in the remarkably diverse, middle-class central neighborhoods of that town, was one of the few examples of geographical integration.
Not only were the kids of different colors and ethnic backgrounds — so, fully 50 years ago, was the faculty. My elementary, Arthur Amos Noyes, just over a mile to the east, was all-white in students until 1966, when one African-American girl entered 1st grade, and the teachers were all-white as well.
Over the years I had often heard my friends from Altadena Elementary, who joined we Noyes kids in junior high at Eliot, speak reverentially of their time with their 6th-grade teacher, Mel Beech, who is black, and who later became well-known to many in the region as the head of the social-service agency Foothill Area Community Services.
On July 30, former students of Mel’s will hold a 50th reunion celebration with him. Mel recently moved back to our area after a long career around the country, including Georgia and Las Vegas — he took a doctorate in education, became an elementary school principal and then various jobs including deputy superintendent in Inglewood.
They hatched the plan while lunching at Mijares with Mel. One, Tod Dawson, now a New York businessman, writes: “There are some who say that there’s always that one teacher who lights the spark, who opens the door. This is that guy, Dr. Mel Beech. Sure, he taught us math and history and we did standardized testing, but his class was more than that. His classroom was a place where we learned who we were and how we fit. His class was where we experienced real curiosity and the need to achieve and the satisfaction of accomplishment. He fostered and nurtured this is us. Now, 50 years later, we look back on that one year, that one year when something caught fire, when the light broke through and the doors swung open.”
Tod described the careers of his classmates who gathered and will gather again next month: “Scott is an investment banker in London, Norm is a professor at Northridge, Warner is an attorney in Washington, D.C., Dave is an educator, Dwight is the music director for the Pasadena schools, Craig is a master woodworker in Santa Barbara, Martina is a software developer, Nancy is an ergonomics expert in San Francisco, Robin is a set designer, Mary is a backend programmer.”
Great crew. Maybe you were one of Mel’s kids, too. Drop me a line and I will get you in on the reunion.
50th Anniversary of 6th grade class- Pasadena now - 2016
Having learned in harmony during a time of racial strife, they gathered at Mijares Restaurant last Saturday evening to thank the man who guided them in their youth and enriched their lives forever.
Dr. Mel Beech, a former sixth-grade Pasadena Unified teacher no one from his homeroom class of 1967-68 will ever forget, told Pasadena Now he remembers that year of national social and political unrest as “a good one” for him and his students at Altadena Elementary School.
His former students clearly agree. So much so that some flew in from across the country to let him know how important he has been to them.
Alumnus Tod Dawson hatched the idea with classmate Warner Session of throwing a party for Dr. Beech by taking advantage of the class reunion at John Muir High School, saying the timing was perfect.
The Connecticut-based business executive explained why he made the effort: “Did you ever have that one teacher that kind of opened the blinds and lit a spark? This is that guy.”
David Taylor, another Altadena Elementary School alumnus, remembers Dr. Beech as his first African-American instructor.
“It was great having diversity so early in my life and it set the stage for going to Muir High School,” he recalled.
In those days, the surrounding neighborhood from which Altadena Elementary drew its students was racially diverse, yet economically homogeneous.
“It was a community that sort of organically came together; black, white, Hispanic,” Session remembers. “It was a wonderful place to grow up.”
Parents had a hand in Dr. Beech’s success as well.
“They prepared the children so well for the world we lived in,” said alumna Martina Brown Johnson, describing a school community where, as the lone girl of color in her class, she remembers being invited to a sleep-over and feeling so relaxed.
“We all accepted one another for our similarities, rather than our differences,” said Brown Johnson.
An environment of tolerance permitted a black man to work his academic magic on a class of mostly white students.
“He sparked our imagination,” said Dawson, “tapped into our curiosity, made us want to discover and learn and it was a tough time back then when we were little sixth graders. We had civil strife and racial tension [in the country].”
Said Brown Johnson, “Dr. Beech allowed me to understand that subjects like math could also be used to find the art in the world. He had me do a project combining yarn and geometry, and it was such a beautiful project at the end, that I realized liking math could be something great.”
“He never made a promise he couldn’t keep and never raised our expectations without following through. I tried to keep that in mind when I became a teacher and a principal,” said Taylor.
Session, also African-American, said to have a black teacher in those days was “extraordinary. He was a kindhearted, but firm man. A disciplinarian who my mother fell in love with. We bonded and have kept track of each others paths ever since.”
Dr. Beech’s wife, Phyllis, also the possessor of a doctoral degree, said of her husband and his students, “They have maintained a relationship and tonight is the top, because it’s the fiftieth anniversary. It means the world to him.”
Mel Beech is 84, but not too old to learn.
“It’s humbling to find out your sixth-grade students want to see you,” he said. “A person who used to load them up with homework and was very strict about assignments. I think I used to torture them when I played the autoharp and tried to sing.”
In Dr. Beech’s later career, he rose to become an elementary school principal and a deputy superintendent in Inglewood. He was also the head of Foothill Area Community Services, a well-known local social services agency. His career took him out of state, but he recently returned.
Among the accolades Dr. Beech enjoyed at his July 30 soiree were proclamations from City Councilmembers Tyron Hampton and John Kennedy, another from the City of Pasadena and one more from State Assemblyman Chris Holden.
While surely flattered, it’s clear Dr. Beech finds his joy in his students.
“Looking at the picture of them, and looking at the achievements that all of them have made, I’m so very proud of each and every one and I thank God for letting me be their teacher at that time,” he said during the party, beaming.
