Manuscript Page 55

action by the Allocation Board. No one was certain that the State Fund would have enough money to authorize Corona's building projects. We were just hoping that some of the applicants in line ahead of us would drop out or not be eligible. James Harris and Paul Hoyenga, who processed our application, indicated that they thought we had a good chance to get the money.

I went back to Corona and after a few days brought Guin home from the hospital. She had one ovary removed and the other one repaired. The doctor thought we had some chance of having another baby.

After waiting for two weeks for word from Sacramento, I called our State Senator who lived in Hemet. Sen. Dilworth was a real power in Sacramento since he had been serving there for twenty five years. He called the State Allocation Board and was told that Corona's application was scheduled for action the next week. I flew to Sacramento again and after much debate and arguing the Allocation Board approved all three of our projects.

While the building projects were being approved there was a school board election to select a new Board for the new Corona Unified School District. Five members were to be elected and none of the existing members were candidates. This meant that we would have a brand new Board of Education and most of the candidates were saying that they would bring in a new superintendent if they were elected. This put a great deal of pressure on Frank Bishop the current Superintendent. Five reasonably good candidates were elected and were scheduled to take office on July first. Meanwhile the old Board and Superintendent carried on with business as usual. Finally July came and at the first meeting the number one item on the agenda was the Superintendent's contract. Frank Bishop asked for permission to speak and simply announced that he would not be available to serve as superintendent since he had accepted a position as a professor at Redlands University. This action left the new board speechless and we proceeded with routine business. After the meeting I discussed the matter of getting a new superintendent and the Board asked me to contact a number of Universities to get applicants. I was to screen the applicants down to four or five who would be interviewed by the Board for a final selection. The process worked well and at the end, George Kibby was chosen from a group of five qualified applicants.

Kibby was a veteran school administrator who had served at Needles and at Redlands. He caught up very quickly with the Corona situation and was most helpful in all areas. Kibby recognized immediately that the sites on which we were scheduled to build new schools were entirely too small. They were all less than three acres and would simply not accommodate four or five hundred pupils. I had recognized this problem but was hesitant to go for more than was absolutely necessary. I thought it was better to have a half loaf than no loaf at all.

I quickly found some new sites in good locations and determined that they could be purchased. I got estimates of cost for each. Kibby and I went to Sacramento and had a session with Jim Harris and Paul Hoyenga of the Allocation Board. They asked us to