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the proposal I had made to upgrade the system. We went together to see Mr. Smith, County Superintendent of Schools, and Hicks told him that he was tired of trying to make sense of all his messy records and accounts and it was time to modernize the system. He added, "Further more, if you do not approve this improvement, I will go to the Board of Supervisors and lodge a complaint about the current system." I suppose Mr. Smith felt rather uncertain about his position because he agreed to accept my proposal and to cooperate in getting it started. At any rate, we began to write and sign our own checks and the charges were distributed automatically to each budget category as the checks were written on a bookkeeping machine. We were able to present an accurate financial report each month and to project costs and balances to the end of the fiscal year. These are minimum reports for responsible fiscal management.

I should tell you something about Frank Bishop, the Corona Superintendent of Schools who had been in that position since 1934. Frank was a scholarly man and was very well liked by all those who worked with him. The Board members trusted Frank's good judgement and relied on him for advice in all school matters. Most of the residents of the school district were friends of Frank's but there were more and more who became impatient over unsolved problems. Frank was very astute and knew his time as Superintendent was limited so when I became Assistant, Frank told me that I was to run the District while he attended UCLA to get his Doctors Degree. He said he would be home each evening and would be available for consultation in case I needed his advice. I was to hire employees, instruct principals, prepare for Board meetings and do all the things necessary to operate the District while he took an unofficial "Sabbatical Leave." The School Board, of course, had approved this arrangement and to be fair Frank had taken no vacation of any length for over ten years.

As I mentioned before, the pupil transportation contractor was not providing acceptable service and had a long term contract. Because of his family connections and because there was no other contractor to take his place, I did not want to attempt to void his contract. I discussed the matter with Frank and the Board members and came up with the idea that we could purchase the contractor's vehicles and operate them ourselves with our own employees. This idea sounded good and the only problem was with getting enough money to make the purchase. It was obvious that we would need to hold a special tax election to raise the money but this discussion led to some other funding needs that I will attempt to explain.

I have previously mentioned the "fake" attendance boundaries that placed all Mexican pupils in one elementary school . I was determined to get rid of that eyesore and while I was considering various options, a rather large earthquake occurred. I rushed down to the Mexican school and,sure enough, the stucco on one side of the building had come loose and there was a very distinct bulge in the west wall. I managed to get a very excitable local reporter to come to the school. I got a very long straight edge and held it against the wall to show the extent of the bulge while the reporter took pictures. Those pictures in the local paper got the