Jean Pollard: My High School Experience

We moved to Fort Richardson from Fort Bliss, Texas, in 1968. My Dad was in the military at that time. He had been given a choice as to where he'd like for the Army to send him for his next duty. Of all the choices, he was asked to choose between Vietnam and Alaska. Of course, he chose Alaska. However, I think that my mother had a huge influence in that choice. My Dad did all of the driving all the way from Texas. There were six of us in a station wagon: my parents along with their four children. He would stop at a gas station during the evening and go to sleep in the car while the rest of us also slept. For us children, it was a long trip. We drove through Canada and then drove slowly for a long time on a dirt road. Finally (after what seemed to be a long, long time), we drove into Fort Richardson on June 13, 1968. That was 46 years ago, and we are still here. Alaska is still beautiful.

I remember thinking about how we'd be able to keep track of the time. I had never been in a place where the sun kept shining for so long. It was amazing. I don't believe that the sun ever set for nights at a time. It just appeared to cross from one side of the sky to the other side and never went down. We never had anything like that happen in Texas. The closest we'd come to the sky being lit up at night was if there was thunder and lightning.

The big shock that I got was when school started. Someone decided that all of the high school students who lived on Fort Bliss needed to go to Dimond High School. I think that Dowling Road was as far as you could drive on the Old Seward Highway going south. There was no New Seward Highway or Minnesota Drive. Therefore, we had to be up by about 5:00 in the morning to ride on the bus by 6:15 a.m. I think that all of us just went to sleep until we arrived at Dimond.

I thought that I was free of being around any middle school students. After all, we were in high school. But Dimond was not just a high school. It was referred to as Dimond Mears (Dimond High and Jane Mears Junior High). High school and junior high were all together. That was weird. Even the high school students had to share lockers. That didn't happen in Texas. I guess they were trying to build up the school there, so they decided to bus the military youth.

The first snowfall came on September 29, 1968. I think that it snowed off and on from then until May. My shoes were these huge white bunny boots. They weren't fancy, but they sure did keep me warm.

I stayed on the honor roll every quarter. Then, at the end of my senior year, I received a four-year scholarship to Alaska Methodist University (now Alaska Pacific University). Therefore, I've decided that my experience of going through all of that at Dimond High School wasn't so bad after all. I have since retired from the Anchorage School District.

Jean Pollard was living in El Paso, Texas, when her Dad got orders to leave. They were on the military base called Fort Texas, where her father had been stationed for about ten years. All of a sudden he was not just given orders; he was also given a choice to select his orders. He had a chance to choose between Alaska and Vietnam. Well, obviously, he chose Alaska, and they are still here.