Southview’s Claude Coller – June 6, 1971

For all you Southview High School Alumni, here’s a real treat.

It’s a profile of Claude Coller, the longtime, well-respected high school band director at Southview. The story is from the very beginning of his Lorain City Schools music career, and appeared in the Journal on June 6, 1971.

It was written by Bill Scrivo as one of his popular "Bill Scrivo’s People” features.

And for those of us who are familiar with Mr. Coller only by name, but never had the opportunity to meet him, it’s a chance to get to know him better. He was always a little intimidating to me when I saw him conducting his band at a football game or Band-O-Rama. It’s hard to believe he was only in his 20’s at that time!

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Claude Coller, A Bandsman on the Way Up

By Bill Scrivo

IF YOU MET Claude Coller on the street and had to guess what his profession was, you’d probably think he was a bandsman.

BIG, BURLY with a drooping mustache, you can just see Claude strutting along in front of the band, cap visor touching his eyebrows, tight military collar snug around his neck, oompahing in time with the tuba.

You know what? That’s what Claude Coller is. A bandsman. In fact, he’s the instrumental music director for Lorain’s spanking new Southview High. The John Phillip Sousa of E. 42nd Street.

Claude Coller, only 23, is in his first big assignment after college, and enjoying it thoroughly. Born in Washington D.C., he’s the capital’s gift to Southview.

“It’s great teaching in a new school,” says Claude. “You have a chance to do things that no one else has done.

“For instance, we just wrote the Alma Mater this year. We put on the first band shows.

“I can do things my own way,” he continues. “I don’t have to be compared to anybody.”

CLAUDE COLLER didn’t come by that director’s baton and that responsibility easily. He’s the oldest of nine children (he has four brothers and four sisters). His dad is a turbine operator at the Illuminiating Company in Avon Lake. And he’s a man dedicated to education for his children.

Claude came to Lorain with his family in “1951 or 1952.” He graduated from Lorain High School and then studied music at little Murray State University in Southern Kentucky.

“I was accepted at Ohio State and Baldwin - Wallace, but I needed government assistance and scholarships and I got them from Murray State,” recalls Claude.

Claude has played the trumpet since he was in the 4th grade. He was in the school bands and orchestras as he moved through the grades.

THE TURNING POINT came for him between his junior and senior years in high school.

“I went to all-Ohio boys’ band,” he says. “I just enjoyed it so much I decided that’s what I wanted to do with my life.”

After graduation from Murray State, he applied for a job in Michigan. Then he heard that there was an opening back home in Lorain.

“I like the people here,” he says. “I decided I would come back.”

It was the fall of 1969 and Claude’s first assignment was at Longfellow Junior High School and the elementary schools on the East Side of Lorain.

He moved to Southview at the beginning of the 1970-71 school year.

Fore a man of 23, Claude’s responsibilities are weighty. He has orchestra the first period of every morning. Then he teaches instrumental music at either Palm or Homewood schools. Then comes lunch and teaching in the afternoon for about an hour. Then back to Southview for a conference period at 2 p.m. Band occupies the hour from 3 to 4 p.m.

“I teach individual lessons before and after school,” says Claude. That accounts for a very busy day.

What does he like most?

“Of all the things I do, I enjoy marching band the best,” says Claude. He likes “all of music,” and likes to play “some of the classical things” himself. His main instrument is trumpet, but he can play and teaches all the band instruments.

He writes a little music himself, but most of his time is spent “arranging things for the band and orchestra.”

Claude was a little apprehensive when he first took over the orchestra.

“We had a little 12 piece orchestra and I was a little afraid to work with them,” he says. “I didn’t know what you could do with 12 people.

“But it turned out they were pretty fine musicians and they wound up playing more than the Concert Band.

“Because the group was small, they were easier to work with. I could devote more time to each child.

Claude Coller knows that the biggest part of his job is gaining the trust of his students.

“Most students don’t really trust teachers,” he says. “And I guess I didn’t either.”

But he’s aware of the problem and he works at it. From the way his students look at him and the way his bands and orchestra sounds, he has bridged the gap between teacher and pupil.

Right now, his life is wrapped up around teaching. He likes to read, novels especially, and in the fall “I toss the football around a little.”

What about girls and marriage in the plans of a bright young man of 23?

That word “bright” is a key word.

“I watched a lot of my friends who married last year when they were first-year teachers,” he says. “Trying to make a go of it was a real struggle.

“I’d like to wait until I have things well established and be able to devote time to a wife – and so on.”

Claude Coller is a big, gentle man, who doesn’t like to hurt anyone. He started out feeling he wanted to advance to a teaching job in college. Now he finds out that his job at Southview is “what I’ve always wanted.”

That’s Claude Coller. A young man made of the stuff that good bandsmen are made of. Strike up the band! There’ll be no "trouble in River City” as long as Claude Coller’s around to keep the kids out of the poolroom by sticking a trumpet in their hands.

Al Doane 1925 – 2021

It was very sad to learn of the passing of well-known local historian Al Doane.

I first encountered Al back in the 1990s at the old Spitzer Renaissance Hotel, where he was displaying a collection of vintage Lorain postcards. I was there with my parents, and was surprised when the gentlemen behind the event greeted my father by his first name (“Hi, Eddy!”). I guess everyone knew Al.

I officially met Al when I was just getting this blog off the ground. One day we were both in the local history area of the Lorain Public Library, and he struck up a conversation with me. He was doing some maintenance of his historical archives, which he had donated to the library to make them available to other researchers. His material filled a whole room of file cabinets. 

Al helped me a lot with my blog. In recent years, the first email of the day that I received was usually from Al, contacting me about something that I had posted on the blog that day. He was always graciously thanking me for writing about Lorain’s history, and usually provided some reminisce or information that I would then add to the post to make it more complete. There are many posts that were enhanced with Al’s generous help.

Al always wanted to share information with me. A couple of years ago, he invited me to his house in Amherst so that he could provide me copies of things he had in his home files that he knew I was interested in. I enjoyed the hospitality of Al and his wife that wintery night. He would also, right out of the blue, send me a package in the mail containing copies of old articles that he thought I might find interesting.

At least Al made sure that all of his knowledge of Lorain’s history would not be lost when he passed on, by collaborating on a series of books with his friends and fellow historians. (I wrote about one of them here.) There was even a book entitled, The Life & Times of Al Doane – Memories of Lorain, which he wrote with his friends Matt Weisman and Paula Short. 

Al was a nice guy and Lorain’s biggest champion of its history. He will be missed, and I offer my condolences to his wife and family.

The Roger Blough Christened – June 5, 1971

Front page of the June 5, 1971 Lorain Journal

Fifty years ago tomorrow, the Roger Blough was christened in the Lorain yards of the American Ship Building Company, where it was built.

Although the ship’s launch was originally planned for July 1971, the well-remembered engine room fire that killed four shipyard workers delayed it by almost a year. Roger Blough eventually had its sea trials in June 1972 (which I wrote about here).

The Journal article notes, “The 858-foot-long Roger Blough is the largest ship ever built on the Great Lakes and it is the first of the new giants that soon will be sailing the lakes.

“The Roger Blough is as long as three football fields and 105 feet wide. Its size allows it to carry three times the amount of cargo a 600-foot-long ship can handle and its special self-loading system allows it to discharge cargo at the rate of 10,000 tons an hour.”

(Note that the photo of Roger Blough’s niece in front of his namesake ship was taken by our pal Gene Patrick.)

I’ll have more on the Roger Blough when it gets closer to the anniversary date of the tragic fire.

Jim Bouton Pitches Another Book – June 1971

Did you ever read Ball Four by Jim Bouton? 

The baseball diary of the 1969 season by the former New York Yankees pitcher is one of my favorite books. I reread it every couple of years. Although it was controversial at the time (revealing the sometimes racy behind-the-scene antics of Major League ballplayers), the book is quite tame today – but still hilarious.

I had a dogeared copy of the original Ball Four paperback (from Booksellers in Elyria), but over the years Bouton kept updating and reissuing his tome in hardcover, filling in the reader with stories of his latest endeavors and what his old teammates were up to. I eventually bought an autographed copy of the last version, Ball Four – The Final Pitch (2000).

Sadly, Bouton passed away in July 2019.

Anyway, fifty years ago, Bouton’s sequel to Ball Four came out, entitled I’m Glad You Didn’t Take It Personally. He dedicated it to Bowie Kuhn, the Commissioner of Major League Baseball at that time. And that’s the subject of the story below, which appeared in the Journal on June 1, 1971.

I haven’t read I’m Glad You Didn’t Take It Personally since the late 1970s, but will probably order it from the library soon.

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Mike Marshall, the Cy Young Award-winning MLB pitcher and teammate of Jim Bouton during that 1969 season (when both were with the Seattle Pilots) passed away on June 1, 2021. He figured quite prominently in Ball Four as one of Bouton's friends and roommates.

Vermilion’s “Ol’ Swimming’ Hole” – June 3, 1971

Here’s something that caught my eye from the front page of the June 3, 1971 Journal. Although the photo is a little dark, you can see boys swimming in what looks like a nice tree-lined lake.

The caption reads, “JUST HOW LITTLE the basic joys of life change from generation to generation is illustrated nicely by this seemingly rustic scene at a swimming hole in Vermilion. It could be a flashback to early 1900. But it wasn’t. It was yesterday, less than 200 feet from East Liberty Avenue, and in full view of hundreds of motorists streaming along the busy highway.”

With that description of the location (as well as the home addresses of the swimmers), I knew exactly where the photo was taken. It’s the old quarry located right behind my condo, near the highway overpass. (I wrote about it back here.) 

Back in 1971, when the Journal photo was taken, my Woodlands condo wouldn’t even be built for another eighteen years. 

Today, the quarry is private property, with posted NO TRESPASSING signs. But even though it’s not part of my condo, it’s still a beautiful setting and enjoyable to look at year-round. Ducks, geese and eagles like it too.

This is the view looking north from Woodland Drive.
You can see the Liberty Avenue (U.S. 6) overpass off in the distance.

Lorain Memorial Day Parade – 1971

All the time that I was growing up in Lorain, I’d never thought of it as a small town.

But in many ways, it was exactly that – despite its considerable population and longtime status at Ohio’s tenth largest city. You could read the Journal and recognize the names of people you knew. In fact, the Journal played a major part of creating that small town atmosphere, by publishing school Honor Rolls, birthdays, hospital reports and regular editorials commenting about what was happening in the city.

Memorial Day parades seemed to bring out that feeling of Hometown, U. S. A. in Lorain too. For a few hours, tens of thousands of people lined Broadway and West Erie Avenue, united in their enjoyment of the city’s high school marching bands, colorful floats and drill teams – played out against the backdrop of the distinctive words of Jack LaVriha, the parade announcer and longtime Journal reporter.

Back on Memorial Day 2021, Journal photographer Tom Whittington seemed to do a particularly good job capturing that small town feeling through his lens. See for yourself in the collection of photos below, which appeared in the paper on June 1, 1971.

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Like me, you were probably looking at the photo in the top right hand corner of the page, trying to figure out where Gina Lollobrickida, I mean, Lollobrigida was in that photo of a pop art sculpture. Although the picture seems like a big pile of junk, Gina is in there (see below).

Lorain Times-Herald Front Page – May 31, 1923

It’s the last day of May, and ninety-three years ago today, Lorain was just coming off a very quiet Memorial Day 1923.

Under the heading QUIET OBSERVANCE OF MEMORIAL DAY, a short article noted, “Outside of a strong wind blowing off Lake Erie and scores of automobiles filling Lorain’s main thoroughfares, Memorial Day here yesterday was one of the most quiet in years.

“No public demonstrations of any kind were in evidence. Members of the American Legion, Veterans of the Foreign Wars and Sons of the Veterans Auxiliary decorated the graves of soldiers at both cemeteries in the morning.

“Memorial Day yesterday was the first time in many years that there was no parade or public demonstrations of any kind here.”

Elsewhere on the front page, the big news was that the circus was in town. “Kids, big and small, were having their inning today by reason of the fact the Hagenbeck Wallace circus is in town with all its old time lure and pristine glory.

“The circus, enroute to the west coast, came into Lorain over the Nickel Plate early this morning from Ashtabula, where it played yesterday.

“The circus grounds are at Washington-av and 14th-st on the spacious show lot known as Municipal field.

“Shortly before noon today the big street parade rolled through 14-st to Broadway, north on Broadway to Erie, west on Erie to Washington and back to the show grounds.

“The big feature of the circus this year is the English Hunt scene, which is heralded as the prettiest animated picture ever presented under canvas.

“There are lots of funny clowns, good aerialists, trained animals, pretty girls and every requirement of the big-time circus.”

Finally, of particular interest to me is the article entitled, POSSE SHOOTS DOWN DESPERADO WHO TERRORIZED TOWN FOR WEEKS. From North Bay, Ontario came the report that Leo Rogers, a “21 year old desperado” had been shot dead by a posse. He had been on the run after escaping from the courthouse, (where he was being tried) and murdering, in turn, a Provincial constable and a city policeman when they each tried to arrest him. North Bay had been terrorized for two weeks while Rogers was being tracked. 

The reason I was so interested is because I spent a lot of time in North Bay over the years, visiting the spouse’s grandmother and other family. They were still talking about Leo Rogers in the early 2000s, and able to point out the house where he lived.