Class of 1946 remember Cheney's influence on them

Three 1946 Cheney High School graduates Joe (Lad) Zvanovec, Charles (Chuck) Beaudreau, and Gildon (Gil) Beall met in October at Lad's home in Newport, R.I. In 72 hours they attempted to reconstruct some of the intervening 70 years. As they reviewed their experiences they recalled how work, school and people in Cheney had influenced their lives.

The Bealls, Harry, Helen, Gildon and Betsy, arrived in Cheney in1936 when Harry assumed the role of editor and publisher of the Cheney Free Press.

The Zvanovec family moved to Cheney in l937 when the father, Joseph, took the job of chief chemist at the F. M. Martin Grain and Milling Co.

The newly opened laboratory school on the EWCE (Eastern Washington College of Education) campus took the name Martin honoring Clarence D., still the mayor of Cheney, who had been elected governor in 1933. Both Lad and Gil started third-grade in that school which featured what was then known as "progressive" education.

Emphasis on independence and the presence of student teachers stimulated and encouraged learning. Third-grade education contained units on soil conservation, an important topic at the time of the dust bowl for a community dependent on farming. Fourth-graders made puppets representing participants in Lewis and Clark's exploration. Gil still has his puppet York's, Clark's servant, recognition of diversity despite the absence of black people in Cheney in 1937.

The newspaper was a central part of Gil's life. Harry worked many nights and press day, Thursday, was always busy. Gil worked each Saturday as "printer's devil," cleaning up the shop and melting down type for reuse in the linotype. Milt Hunt, Lad's boss at the Cheney Dairy Products Company gave him a pint of cream the two shared in milkshakes as a Saturday morning break.

Growing up in the Cheney during the Depression and World War II was never boring. Laddie found lots of work mowing lawns, delivering newspapers, doing various jobs his dad got for him around the mill, also working at the creamery and later spending summers as a gandy dancer on the section gang of the SP&S RR (Spokane, Portland & Seattle Railroad).

But it wasn't all work. In those days kids could still "go outside and play," so there were softball games in the vacant lots, great "hide and go seek" games well into the evenings, not to mention scouting and swimming in Fish Lake and, in time, the grange dances in Amber and Four Lakes among others. Laddie's dad was an avid hunter and fisherman who often took his son along fishing in Badger Lake. Joseph Zvanovec also was elected chief of the volunteer fire dept. for an interesting term.

Soon enough everyone's lives were changed by the war. Harry Beall wanted to contribute so joined the Army as a supply officer. Helen took over the Free Press in 1942 and with the skills of printer and linotype operator, Guyel Frost, published throughout the war. Gil worked Wednesday night, press day Thursday, did the weekend clean up and wrote sports.

The Beaudreau family moved to Cheney from Lind in 1943 when Chuck's father, Arthur, accepted a teaching position at Cheney High School, which Chuck entered as a sophomore. Chuck, Lad and Gil shared classes and football. In addition, Chuck had many part-time jobs including working in grocery and clothing stores, the malt shop, a laundry and delivering fuel oil.

Shared academic, social and athletic activities in high school forged solid bonds of friendship for a group that included Gil, Chuck and Lad. As classmates in a small school they had many of the same subjects at the same time and acted in school plays together.

The three were members of a vocal quartet - Norval Holmes was the first tenor - that competed in music meetings with other area schools. Most memorable was the fun of being teammates on coach Floyd Cook's Spokane County championship football team in l945. There were also the paper drives, scrap metal collection and everything possible to further the war effort as they watched, one by one, classes graduating ahead of them go to military service.

Before graduation in 1946 the A-Bomb was dropped and the war ended. They figured to get on with life "as the boys came home again." But of course, the Korean War brought them into military service.

Manpower shortage during WWII created a need for many of the jobs they obtained but work became a habit. Chuck's father Art obtained work for Gil in the wheat harvest near Lind for several summers to help with college expenses. A memorable chore Art obtained for Gil and Chuck was controlling ground squirrels at the Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge south of Cheney by dumping poisoned oats into their holes.

The Zvanovec family moved to Toledo, Ohio, when Joseph was transferred by Nabisco, purchaser of the Martin mill. A graduate from Toledo, Lad had a career in the Navy that included long stints in South America and the command of a destroyer.

After a year at Eastern, Gil went to UW to obtain an medical degree and on to become a UCLA professor. Chuck obtained a bachelor of arts at Eastern, a Ph.D. in Hawaii and was a professor at Ohio State and Florida universities, retiring from the latter.

Lad, in Newport, R.I, has retired from the Navy, Chuck from the University of Florida and Gil from UCLA. In the 70 years since they left Cheney their lives diverged as much as their locations but remained affected by their adolescent experiences and the influences of friends, family and teachers in Cheney.