Jim Alexander

It is my pleasure to speak to you today on behalf of the Board of Trustees of School District 193. Today, however, I am proud to report to you as a soldier in the army of General Jose Luis Madarieta.

In 1990 the Mountain Home School District created this Alternative School at the urging of Larry Slade. This innovative school was designed to provide educational services to a segment of our student population who, for one reason or another, were being lost from our school system. These students just didn’t seem to thrive in traditional school. The intent of this school is to keep class sizes relatively small, providing more opportunity for interaction with the instructor. The trade off is that instructors expect more interaction with students as well. In a nutshell, students are treated in a more workmanlike fashion--their education is their job: if they work hard, are punctual, respect those around them, and produce, they are paid in terms of grades. If they do not, they will not be successful in this program. In fact, they might even be terminated. Mr. Slade and the staff are the bosses. This very project we are here to present today is but one example of the types of projects that can be focused upon with this type of school. Many of these students have been with us from the ground floor, and are all experts of sorts on the subject of Richard McKenna and his writings, and they know they have Jose to thank for it. I cannot say enough good things about this project and the way Jose Madarieta has handled it. Exhausting as it is, this is a true gift to this school, the school district, the community, and to Idaho. I especially thank Mr. and Mrs. Crain. Without their selfless generosity, none of this could have happened. In addition to some 350 pounds of archival items, the Crains also donated classroom sets of Richard McKenna’s published works. On behalf of everyone associated with education in School District 193, please accept my sincere appreciation for your thoughtfulness. I think this is a wonderful memorial to Mac and Eva.

I also thank Rick Ardinger of the Idaho Humanities Council and Alan Virta, director of BSU Special Collections for their help in retrieving and archiving these special documents.

At first we referred to this school simply as the alternative school, then as Academy 2000, but as the millennium drew closer, we knew the name would have to change, so why Richard McKenna?

Having grown up in Mountain Home myself, I found Richard McKenna to be a complete mystery. His name would surface from time to time, but how does one identify with someone unidentifiable? I was 13 years old when The Sand Pebbles was published. Our teachers told us that it was written by a man born and reared right here. But that was where it all stopped. I vaguely remember when he and Eva came for his class reunion, and the articles written by Bob Lorimar in the Mountain Home News, but first hand knowledge of Richard McKenna seemed almost nonexistent. I seriously doubted that we would find anything, but that was before I knew Jose and Shirley Lectka. They located Louise and Jimmy Crain, Tom Dorton, a shipmate of McKenna’s and membership chairman of the Yangtze River Patrol, and Dr. David Grover, historian of the Yangtze River Patrol . They also contacted the Department of the Navy as well as shipmates. The pieces of the puzzle fell together and I publicly thank each and every correspondent for the extraordinary compassion and consideration shown us.

Richard Milton McKenna was born in Mountain Home, Idaho on May 9, 1913, the oldest of four sons born to Lucy and Milton McKenna. Lucy took in laundry for ladies in the community, and Milton worked for Caldwell Hardware on main street. Later, Milton worked as a freighter, hauling goods to the mines in Rocky Bar and Atlanta, and also to Mountain City and Wells Nevada. In early years the family lived at 208 East 4th South. It was in those early years that Richard discovered the Carnegie Public Library. Built in 1907 by a grant from the Andrew Carnegie Foundation, it was made possible by a grass roots petition circulated by a Ladies’ organization headed by none other than Mrs. Caldwell, his father’s employer. It was here that his legendary appetite for reading and learning would be appeased. The librarians there saw to it that Richie, as he was known then, got first shot at any book they thought might interest him--which included virtually every volume in the library including the 1902 USDA Annual Report, which he even admitted was dismally boring. Most importantly, Richard never forgot the ladies who made the library possible, and in later years he would write that even though other writers considered speaking before ladies’ clubs an unbearable burden, he never refused a request and never accepted a fee. He was grateful for the interest the ladies’ clubs of Mountain Home had taken in his and other children’s desire to read and learn--they even purchased his library card for him. He was painfully aware of how poor his family was, and felt an eternal obligation to Mrs. Sessions and the other librarians for their many acts of kindness. He made it clear that supporting ladies’ social organizations was a duty and an honor; a small price to pay for the tremendous benefits they provide.

Not surprisingly, Richard was a very successful student in the Mountain Home school system. He graduated at the top of his class in 1930, barely 17 years old. While in high school he served as student body president as a junior, letterman’s club president, joke editor for the annual, a member of the debate team, and played football. He received several awards for science and math, and a few for English. (Ironically, English was not his strongest subject.) Even then his exceptional communicative writing style was recognized when several of his short stories and poems were printed in the year books over his four years at Mountain Home High School. The High School I am referring to is the 1926 High School, or the building now referred to as the Hacker Middle School Annex.

His memories of Mountain Home included long walks in the desert, singing the songs he made up while adventuring, and daydreaming--allowing his imagination to run wild. This is the period he would later refer to as his Walden, and in later years he would point to one of his most cherished possessions as a sprig of sage brush sent to him from an old friend from Boise. One whiff of genuine sage brush could trigger a flood of memories. However, life in Mountain Home was not always utopian for Richard McKenna or his family. By the time he was in high school the family had moved onto a small acreage on Canyon Creek Road where the McKennas attempted to farm and Lucy trained horses. It was also around this time that the family broke up. With the onset of the Great Depression, it was only a matter of time before Lucy could no longer manage to pay the mortgage. Lucy McKenna and her 4 sons were evicted from their home on Christmas Day, 1929. That was the last Christmas spent in Mountain Home by the McKennas. Richard never overcame the anger associated with the humiliation caused his mother over this, and is probably why he remained so close to his mother throughout his life. It is probably also why he didn’t return for 30 years after High School graduation. He later referred to the experience as painfully character building. Lucy and her sons moved to Caldwell shortly after Richard’s graduation, where Lucy lived out her days.

After one year at the College of Idaho, and with no hope of raising the $50 for an additional semester, Richard joined the Navy in 1931 where he spent a 22 year career. He was first trained as a hospital corpsman, but after a few months transferred to fireman, then to machinist’s mate. Over his career he worked in the engine rooms and refrigeration plants of several ships, trained other sailors, wrote speeches for an Admiral, and was a noted amateur anthropologist specializing in cultures of the Orient. He spent the bulk of his career in the Pacific. He referred to himself as a "small ship" sailor. Smaller ships tended to be less rigid, militarily, and the crew members usually became good friends. Serving on the USS Ashville --a Yangtze River gun boat and another ship, and the USS Gold Star--in Guam, Richard McKenna documented many of the stories he would later compile into The Sand Pebbles.

When the idea arose for naming the school for Richard McKenna, it was important that we examine his moral character as well. We were astonished to find that he had no skeletons in his closet. Mac, as he was known in his Navy years, sent all but $13 per month of his pay to his mother to help her in bringing up his two younger brothers. (I say two brothers because Archibald, who was just younger than him, had died by the time Richard was 19.) As we know, Mac’s true passion was to read and learn. He explored the markets of his ships’ ports of call so he could avail himself of the books in the markets. He could buy books or magazines for a few cents, and in the Orient he could live like a king on $13 a month. He also subscribed to dozens of International Correspondence Courses and took advantage of virtually every learning opportunity. He stashed books everywhere on these ships because wall lockers were only two foot cubes in which to stow his earthly possessions. His reputation for reading was legend on these ships, and new crew members soon learned to not be shocked when they ran across a book in a strange place, but most importantly, these books belonged to Mac.

At the conclusion of his military career, Mac attended the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill at the urging of its ROTC director, a former skipper of a ship Mac was on. He attended on his GI Bill and graduated in two-and-one-half years with a degree in English Literature, summa cum laude, phi beta kappa. His views on education are legend: highly critical of public education, noting that most students attend public schools expecting to be spoon fed knowledge and that few had the lust for knowledge he thought they should have. He considered his Carnegie Library readings to be more beneficial than his formal public education in Mountain Home, and felt it a privilege just to have the opportunity to learn more. In his writings he referred to students going to college directly from high school as "passively undergoing" an education much as an engine would undergo an overhaul, instead of "undertaking" an education in a workmanlike and dedicated manner.

In 1956, when Mac graduated from college, he also married Eva Grice, a librarian at the Wilson Library on the campus of the University of North Carolina. They settled down and he began to write. But first, he made a secret trip home--to Mountain Home that is. He contacted no one. After 26 years he just wanted to see the place. He rented a room in a motel for a few days and just walked the streets. He took comfort in seeing his beloved Carnegie Library, his childhood schools, and his old neighborhood. He later wrote that during that trip the only person he recognized was the town "crazy".

When he returned to Chapel Hill, he began to write almost immediately. When he was told that science fiction, his favorite genre, didn’t pay, he began to write essays and short stories about the things he knew best--education and the Navy. He soon found that if he was ever to sell a story he would need an agent, and when he connected with New York Publicist and Literary Agent, Rogers Terrell, his career took off. Mac wrote and Rog sold--and sold--and sold--to the "slicks"; Saturday Evening Post, Readers Digest, Argosy, etc. In post World War II America, there was an incredible hunger for stories with the detail and accuracy of real military life in foreign lands. After a few years, as the short story market became saturated, Rog convinced Mac that it was time to define himself as a novelist and to develop a certain short story he had written into what was to become The Sand Pebbles in 1962. Thanks to the Crains, this school now has all the drafts and rewrites of this epic novel. Written in pencil on the backs of discarded letterhead stationery, and methodically typed, rewritten and retyped, it stands as one of America’s great novels, and defines Richard McKenna as one of America’s great authors.

I doubt that anyone was more surprised by the success of The Sand Pebbles than was Richard McKenna. What he was trying to accomplish was to write a story about the lives of American sailors aboard a gunboat on a tributary of the Yangtze River during the Chinese Revolution . Set in the mid 1920’s, McKenna wanted to relay the stories told to him by shipmates who were there. He considered the book a success when these old salts gave him their unanimous approval and appreciation for telling it like it was. Writing a 1963 New York Times best seller, sitting atop the Best Seller List for 28 weeks, and winning the Harper Prize was a nice bonus. Suddenly the world had discovered this eccentric genius, and Richard and Eva McKenna’s lives would never be the same.

1963 was also the year Richard and Eva came back to Mountain Home to attend his High School Class Reunion. This event far surpassed Richard’s expectations. His classmates and old friends welcomed him not because he was a celebrity, but because he was one of "them," and he had been missed for 33 years. It was good to see that Richie had landed on his feet. He had a promising career and a nice wife. He spent a few days here renewing old friendships, going up to Paradise Plunge with his classmates for a picnic, and most importantly, being given the opportunity to spend two hours alone in the Carnegie Library on Sunday morning--just Richie McKenna and hundreds of books he considered old friends. Returning to his roots with his head held high was something he needed. Later, he visited his mother in Caldwell before returning to Chapel Hill.

It was during the flight back to North Carolina, when he looked down at the terrain of Idaho, that he realized it was the desert he missed and not the mountains. It was the memories of the long walks and the solitude of oceans of sagebrush and wind and rocks and jack rabbits that came flooding back to him--his Walden. He also remembered the acquaintances and friends he had somehow forgotten--the Basque sheepherders, real cowboys, Mexican laborers, and old Indian fighters. As a child he even knew Commodore Jackson, the founder of the town. He thought about how fortunate he had been to have grown up in Mountain Home. None of his east coast friends could possibly imagine that type of life or how he could disappear for 30 years, walk into his class reunion and find himself chiming in mid conversation with old friends as if he had never been gone. This visit had been therapeutic and after 30 years of absence, Richard and Eva planned to be frequent visitors.

In the year-and-a-half remaining in Richard’s life, he negotiated a sale for the movie rights of The Sand Pebbles, conferring frequently with screenwriter, Robert Anderson, bought a small house up the hill from the house he and Eva lived in which they resided, made more and more public appearances, and began work on his second novel, The Sons of Martha. This novel, although far from finished, is more autobiographical and I think would have been his defining piece. He processed this work much as he did The Sand Pebbles; wrote about six pages a day, rewrote, smoked cigarettes, drank coffee, ate sandwiches, grew his eyebrows longer and longer, and kept a steady stream of ideas and drafts going to Rogers Terrell--even when Rog was in the hospital. Unfortunately, Richard became begrudgingly distracted from Sons of Martha, taking time for making public appearances, speaking engagements, and writing letters to old classmates and fans. Just as unfortunate, Rogers Terrell died in March of 1963, before Richard had fully developed the story line. Not only had he lost his collaborator, but he had lost a dear friend as well.

At the same time, Richard’s stock continued to soar. His essays and opinions were very much in demand. He had even become a sought after television guest. Everything he had written was being scrutinized and analyzed. Suddenly he scarcely had a moment to himself. Richard McKenna had written for only eight years, and was being compared to Kipling and Melville; he wrote with the passion of Hemmingway without those damned three word sentences. His sudden popularity overwhelmed him at times.

Sadly, it was not to be. On November 1, 1964, Richard McKenna died in his sleep of a massive myocardial infarction. He was 51 years old.

It is difficult to say what might have been had he lived, but I think it is safe to say that Richard McKenna was establishing himself as one of America’s great writers at the time of his death. He had mastered the style of the well lighted story demonstrated by Hemingway, and had acquired an affluent following consisting of the great writers of the time, such as Pearl Buck, Ogden Nash, John Steinbeck, Herman Wouk, and many others.

As I mentioned earlier, it is my pleasure to be a small part of this project. I believe it is important for every community to know its history and the citizens who have made a difference. Richard McKenna has certainly made a difference to this community, but moreover he is someone all Idahoans can be proud to call a native son. His life impacted millions of people around the world in a profound way. His quest for knowledge in the face of adversity stands as a beacon for all students in every school throughout our state. As Sandy Friedly wrote, he is the quintessential self made man. But now it is time for the sailor to come home from the sea. It is time for Richie McKenna, the young Carnegie Library bibliophile, to return to his roots. This is home, and he has been gone too long. Here his works will live forever. His writings will be scrutinized, digested, criticized, memorized, photocopied, and debated. I think that is exactly what Richard McKenna would want. On behalf of School District 193, thank you for being with us today.

1. International Correspondence school courses.
2. Actually called wall lockers.

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