Journey of 10,000 Miles…

It is well-known that every football coach can teach social studies to high school students.

Sarcasm aside, I was that rare breed; I was a newly minted social studies teacher who could not coach football.

I received my military service discharge in 1971 and decided to return to college to work for my teacher certification. After I finished my student teaching and received credentials as a qualified secondary school history teacher, I hit a brick wall. There was an absolute glut of teachers in Colorado, my home state, who were qualified to teach in the social sciences and could coach football.

I started working as a security guard at construction sites around the Denver Metro area for $2.00 an hour…a much-needed raise from the $.60 an hour I was earning as a dishwasher in my college’s dormitory dining halls in 1966. I graduated to $2.15 per hour while working for a photographic equipment retailer in downtown Denver.

I was unhappy. Unable to adjust to the hours required of a security guard (6 pm to 6 am, 5, 6, 7 days a week), I was an equally poor retail sales employee (I did learn, however, that the gear I was selling is never, ever “cheap;” they are “inexpensive!”).

I do not remember how or when I became aware of possible teaching jobs with the United States government. Specifically, the Department of Defense employed school teachers on overseas military bases.… Viet Nam-era veterans…I, being one of those—were given preferential consideration for hiring.

I applied post haste. And then waited.

Sometime around the middle days of August 1973, I received the phone call I’d been expecting, though not necessarily the call I was hoping for. Visions of army bases in Germany, Japan, and other desirable locales quickly faded as I was informed that a teaching position was immediately available... if I so chose to accept. Would I consider teaching music on an Indian reservation…in Arizona?

Not only in Arizona, mind you, but smack dab in the middle of the Sonoran Desert.

Quite frankly, my retail sales career was going nowhere….well, that’s not entirely accurate. My days in retail sales were numbered; I was not going to last more than a few more weeks…more likely, a mutual parting of ways was not far over the horizon.

Arizona? Not quite Germany or Japan, to say the least…

“I’m not a music teacher. I don’t know how to teach music,” challenging the voice from the Bureau of Indian Affairs offices….coming from somewhere in Phoenix, Arizona.

“According to the college transcript you submitted with your application, you have more than 45 hours of…”

I didn’t let him finish. “Those credits were all performance credits…for playing in orchestras, string quartets. I’m a history teacher. I don’t know the first thing about teaching regular music to school children.” I told him…. once more.

“Well, Mr. Scheiber, let me tell you how things stand. School has already started. We don’t have a music teacher on staff. It’s come down to you, or…probably…no one. Besides, I think you can give those kids some music, which is better than no music.” And then he added: “As a new teacher, Bachelor of Arts with no experience, we can start you off as a GS-7.”

“GS-7?”

“We normally start new teachers as GS-5, but we are willing to start you as a GS-7. You’ll be earning a little over $11,000 annually teaching music to Papago children.”

$11,000 a year. Holy...!! My best friend earned a little over $9,000 teaching special education for the Denver Public Schools. He was in his second or third year teaching.

“What tribe did you say?” I asked.

“Papago,” he replied. “They live on the second largest Indian reservation in the United States.”

I had never heard of them. Truthfully, I have met only one Indian…Native American…before 1973. He was in my platoon in Quantico. I don’t remember his name. I never knew his tribe, though I suspect he was Navajo.

“Give me a few days….”

“School has already started. We need you down here ASAP. Call me no later than tomorrow.”

After a few more “pleasantries” and a promise to call the next day, our conversation ended.

A few days later, I was heading for the Sonoran Desert in my beat-up Chevy…actually, I was heading for who knows where.

At the time, understandably, I had lots of misgivings, much dread …and a tiny glimmer of hope. My decision in the summer of 1973 to teach music for the BIA, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, at Santa Rosa Boarding School, on the Papago Indian Reservation, in the middle of nowhere, was the most momentous...and the very best!... decision I have ever made in my life.

Here is hoping my wife of 40 years forgives me for saying that.