Mr. Fecht loved frogs!
I’ve been looking through the faculty section of my Ceralbus and came across a picture of Gerald Fecht, whom I had as a senior. It’s terrible, though, that at the moment I cannot recall the name of the class, except that it dealt with Senior issues — that is, Senior in high school issues, not what most of us are facing now — senior citizen issues! Maybe it was called Senior Studies?
Can anyone remember the name of the class? I do recall that at the time, it was fun and interesting and we dealt with life issues. I remember Mr. Fecht making some very pithy and humorous comments about all sorts of things. Here’s what he wrote in my yearbook: “Kathy, What a real pleasure to have you as a student. Your intellect and effort is exciting to observe. Remember National Frog Day — May 24th.”
Mr. Jerry Fecht in 2007
Anyway, in searching for Mr. Fecht on the Internet, I found an extensive and most interesting biography of him at the Notre Dame High School, Class of 1957 blog, which you can view by clicking here. Apparently he attended 11 different schools before graduating from Notre Dame in Sherman Oaks. He graduated from my alma mater, the University of Southern California, and became part of an education program for classroom interns. He came to Burbank High in 1967 where he met his wife, Janne Shreves, another teacher (My sister Margo recalls having her for math.) That means he was a newlywed when some of us had him for a teacher.
Later he began doctoral studies and completed his PhD at USC, and accepted a teaching position in humanities at Moorpark College, Ventura County. He retired in 2004 and became President of The Museum of the San Fernando Valley.
By my calculations, he will soon celebrate his 74th birthday. His comment on his 70th birthday: Holy Cow!
You can see him on YouTube here:
Burbank High Class of 1968 
A fantastic history teacher. He was inspirational and made going to class fun.
[…] (Jerry) Fecht, one of our favorite teachers. I wrote a post about him five years ago, (“I found Mr. Fecht!“) where he had retired from Moorpark College and became president of The Museum of the San […]