A Day at the Westport Reporter

How many young men came through the doors of the Westport Reporter from Westport High School and its neighborhood looking for work?  I was one of them during most of the sixties.   Harold Reddoch, the owner, had a steady supply of paperboys and office clerks because Kansas City’s Westport was still stable.  Demographics had yet to change another American city for the worst.  I remember of few names: Randy Becker, Gary Boyle, Ronald Elliott.  The Westport Reporter was called a newspaper although its reach went to just part of Kansas City, Missouri and was a small "advertiser."  Paper routes went from 27th St. on the north to 75th on the south where the old Fairyland Park was.   State Line was its farthest reach on the west although we overlapped at KU Medical Center.  Troost formed the eastern boundary where 1968 race rioters burned down the entire corridor.

My job at seventeen was as an office clerk before and during that summer of 1968.  I operated a Headliner which printed out the product headlines for paste-up work long before Photo Shop and computers.  I also did the Wolferman’s store ad in the picture.  Ron Elliott was the lead paste-up man.  The artwork would be photographed and transformed into an offset printer plate.  Harold purchased one of these presses during my stay and I remember the tickety-tickety noise and smell of the ink vividly.  After the pages came off they would be inserted and joined with others and shuffled in the box type jogging machine like the paint shaker you see at WalMart. 

I remember Harold.  He had a crew cut and smoked a cigar – no nonsense and driven in a tough inner city.  He loved history and once recommended I read Winter War, the story of the Russian- Finnish War of 1940.  I remember Jack Larson, his lead office person when I started there as a paperboy when I was still going to Rollins Elementary.  He had an unusually good sense of humor, tolerated us high school kids, and had an excellent telephone manner with advertisers.  The Westport High kids went off into life like me, but I’m glad at least one of us can recall and write about Westport and the people who lived and worked there.

Westport High School, 1967

Some people are blessed with the existence of their Alma Maters.  I have only one left myself; Rollins Grade School - burned down; Westport High in Kansas City finally closed after more than 100 years; and Metropolitan Jr. College went defunct right after I graduated in 1969.  What I can say about the buildings themselves is they were brick fortresses made to last.  Apparently, I’m one of those who are always on the tail end of things, but at least I saw them in their better times.  The older I get, the more I sympathize with the English people who highly regard and esteem continuity.  I’m also sad to say my old Main Street neighborhood has crumbled and changed so much for the worse that I hardly recognize it.  It’s now like an entire culture and people never existed.

 

The photos show Westport High School at 39^th & McGee in Kansas City, Missouri and a corner of the old Metropolitan Jr. College across the street that many of Westport’s graduates attended.  It looks to me like they were built by the same company and, of course, there were no conveniences in those days.  When it got hot, it was really hot.  There was no carpeting.  There were no elevators and those stair wells went straight down to the concrete slab in front of the cafeteria; I was always careful not to get too close to the rails that only came up to a little above the knees.  Hallway lockers had those wire mesh doors which only partially aired funky gym clothes and the resident hoods were always prying them open.  On the other hand, fights were a rarity because the bad guys would be promptly sent to Coach Webster for swats or to the principal’s office for expulsion.  That was Mr. Evans' job.  Mr. Ball was the Principal.  This was before the Left and its mischief had destroyed convention, custom, and a respect for the law and its enforcement.  There were no drugs use at Westport and there was only a rumor or legend of someone getting stabbed.

 

Westport High School was more than a hot brick building.  The student teacher ratio could be 48:1 and I remember many of them (1962-1967).  Miss Bonnie, my Biology teacher, liked to show off the baby in a bottle she kept in her supply room.  It looked just like the one shown in the movie, 2001.  Coach Murphy, before he became the head football coach, used to walk to the showers in the most remarkable fluffy house slippers.  Dave Morton, a Kansas City TV weatherman taught at the same time at Westport and I had him for U.S. History.  I’m embarrassed to say he gave me an “I”, one of the two I received - ever.  Everyone liked him because he was easy going and always fumbled with his words, at least in class.  White haired Inez Pletcher, the English teacher, was a favorite of mine not only because I liked English, but because she knew I was openly “helping” Rod Patterson, our basketball star, with his and let me get away with it.  There were others:  Mrs. Riley, the flamboyant art teacher; Mr. Michaels, Math; Ernie Paris, the typing teacher; Mr. Blair, Shop; Fred Pohlman, Civics: Mr. Lehman, English; Mr. Miles, English (I think); Mrs. Batista, Chemistry, and Ray Dice, Algebra.  Others are found in the complete set of Westport High School yearbooks preserved in the new Mid-Continent Genealogy Library in Independence on Lee’s Summit Road.