Welcome to Mr. Gordon
by Mark Gordon
August 26, 2008
My name is Mark Allen Gordon. I was born in Anderson County about 80 miles south of here. My youth was spent on a farm between Bush City and Garnett. Grade school came to an end in a two roomed school in Bush City. One of my memorable field trips in grade school was to walk a couple of blocks down town and visit the switch board operator as she demonstrated how to connect phone calls by pushing wires into a panel like Edith Ann on Laugh In. My class was the largest with 4 graduates in. The next fall we attended school in town and there were 96 in our class when we graduated from Garnett High School.
One week after graduation I left the farm and the dairy herd behind and moved to Wichita to attend computer programming school. We were a little behind because we had to wait for the newest in computer technology to arrive. The machine was called a RPGII. When it arrived it was so large it would not fit into a room. During the few days we were waiting we practiced typing on the new 96 column punch cards that were fed to the computer to tell it what to do. After we started we had to write several programs. Each time it had to be rerun our grade dropped a letter.
I graduated in March of 1973 and could not get a job without experience and could not get experience without a job. Interviews continued until August and I decided to learn to be an accountant and moved from Wichita to Olathe to attend Mid America College.
As any freshman does, you have to start with core classes and I had to enroll in a speech class. Gertrude Taylor was an excellent teacher and she encouraged me to be a speech teacher. Four years later I graduated with a Bachelors of Arts in education. There were very few jobs available so I moved back to Wichita. In August of 1979 I received a call that there was an opening in Meriden because a teacher had resigned at the last minute. I interviewed with Mr. Overstreet and Mr. Kircher and they offered the job of theatre, speech, stagecraft, and forensics.
In 1988 I earned a Masters of Arts in Curriculum and Instruction from Emporia State University.
On July 29, 1989 I married “Miss Suzanne” at Rock Creek Bible Church. She continues to direct Gordon’s Preschool.
This year I will teach Language Arts at the Middle School, Public Speaking at the High School, and coach Forensics. I am looking forward to an exciting year!
I may be reached at the high school or by email at mark.gordon@usd340.org.
