Oral history interview with Sue Sissons, October 2, 2009.

              Gary Emanuel: I'm going to tell you what it's all about formally. It is October the 2nd, my name is Gary Emanuel and I'm interviewing Sue Sissons. We're going to be talking of her experiences at ASC Northern Arizona University cause it did change in there. And Sue I have some forms that I'll need you to sign at the end of this. One that is a Deed of Gift that allows me to give this to the Cline Library.
Sue Sissons: Okay.
Gary Emanuel: And two that is an informed consent that says that I tell you that you're not being compensated for this and that it is going to be part of a public record where students can go to study in the future about what life was like back in the 1960s and that's what this informed consent is. And the third one is what they call a Model Release cause I'll be taking your picture at the end of this and we'll put that in the Cline Library also. So those are the formalities of this but I have a series of questions to ask you and I'll be going through those somewhat, but this is basically your story about ASC at NAU so we'll be following along what whatever you want to be bringing into it. Okay? Alright, so why don't you start with just telling me who you are and what degree you got, the year you go it, and from which department and so on.
Sue Sissons: Um I'm Susan Sissons, I was Ashwood when I was in college. And I graduated however as Susan Ashwood Sissons because I got married in December and graduated in May. Even though I never attended other than student teaching that last semester I had completed all of my class work May of '66, but I didn't get to do the student teaching until September, October, November '67, so I didn't graduate till May of--or '66 so I didn't graduate until May of '67. 
Gary Emanuel: With NAU at that time.
Sue Sissons: I mean it was NAU--I never actually attended NAU I always attended Arizona State College, so that was pretty cool. 
Gary Emanuel: (laughing) And Sue just so I'm clear on that was it elementary ed.?
Sue Sissons: No it was junior high, it was basically secondary junior high and high school. And it was physical education.
Gary Emanuel: Ohhh okay.
Sue Sissons: It was called a Hyper Major Health and Physical Education and Recreation.  And then I had a minor in Health and Science. And I took basically...a lot of the classes were like through the nursing program with Dr. Glen Denning because we needed Anatomy, we needed Physiology, we needed Applied Anatomy and Physiology and a lot of those things. And some of it was taught through the Men's PE departments and some through the Women's PE departments and some of it through the Nursing Program because basically as a coach or a PE teacher you needed to the muscles and tendons and how they move and what to do for them if somebody was injured, what not to do. A lot of that knowledge was taught in the athletic training stuff. 
Gary Emanuel: And I would assume in physical therapy classes they have an actual program.
Sue Sissons: They do and my granddaughter's going to be going there in two years. 
Gary Emanuel: Ohh wow that's a very good program. Very good. Well what role did you have in education and funneling your graduation?
Sue Sissons: When I graduated and I went and I interviewed they had people up there from all over the valley and I interviewed with the Gilbert school district. And I taught--we moved down there to Gilbert my husband went to school at ASU and I taught all of the girls 5th through 8th grade PE, all of their health classes, and I did the pom poms the cheerleaders, the basketball, the volleyball, all of the girl's sports teams because in those days the kids in junior high need it just like the high school kids now. So I had all of those things plus the extra curricular stuff and then I taught two classes of 7th grade American History. 
Gary Emanuel: Wow on top of all that. 
Sue Sissons: On top of all that. I worked from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 8 a.m. to 1 on Saturdays. I made a grand total of $100 a week. (Gary laughing) And then of course when you got home you had the papers to grade, the lesson plans to write, and because I had never really done a lot with American History other than in high school and a couple of classes one class in college I was keeping up like two days ahead of the kids in the history area, but it turned out to be a really good thing because now I'm at the Historical Museum and I'm loving history, so it's worked out really good. 
Gary Emanuel: So you've found the love of yours and didn't know it right?
Sue Sissons: Yeah I've really enjoyed the history stuff though. 
Gary Emanuel: But wasn't it always the case that you assume that the P.E. teacher also did history?
Sue Sissons: It seems to be a...in my high school all of the coaches either taught American Government or History so it I guess it just kind of flows I don't know why. 
Gary Emanuel: I don't know either. 
Sue Sissons: Exactly and I never really took any history classes in college other than Dr. Hunt's Management of Political Worlds and we studied the Machiavellian form of government first semester and that was pretty much it! (Gary laughing) Not much history. 
Gary Emanuel: I graduated in history and I kept finding myself being handed sports jobs not only coaching, but also sports announcing and so on. So tell me--let's talk about the physical campus. This would've been 1963?
Sue Sissons: Yup fall of '63 through the summer of '66. Then I moved in the fall of '66 and then graduated in '67. 
Gary Emanuel: So talk about the make-up and the buildings. 
Sue Sissons: Okay if you go to where we call Lit--um you see I was in Cowden Hall. 
Gary Emanuel: Oh sure!
Sue Sissons: That was pretty much and then the other dorm they were still building Cowden Hall when I was in October and they were building the "bull pen" which is what we called the boy's dorm. Cowden was the girl's and the bull pen was the boy's. That was the end of campus and it went north from there. And I lived in Cowden that first year and that was kind of fun because the dorm was not locked down because the workers were there day and night trying to get it finished. The other girls had hours we had hours, but that didn't mean you had to stay in because the doors were always open. We were kind of in and out you know whatever. But the girl that was my roommate Martha Ice she married Jack Cratebaum and I have all this written down for you too. She and I went to each other's weddings; we were in each other's weddings. And then when my husband passed away in 2002 she and her husband came to his funeral. And they ended up they were actually living in Glendale which is where my husband and I ended up. We lived there after we left Gilbert we lived in Glendale from '92 to '94.
Gary Emanuel: So you didn't spend your whole career in Gilbert-
Sue Sissons:--In Gilbert no. 
Gary Emanuel: You went to the Glendale District?
Sue Sissons: Right we were there from '66 to '72 and then we went over to Glendale and I actually taught in the Peoria District and the Washington District. But on the campus we had the--we ate at the we called it the South Dining Hall and then there was another dorm called South Quad and I lived in Cowden the first year then Martha...she and her husband got married and they moved off campus and I went over to South Quad where I met really good friend named Mary Maynard. And it was Mary Ellen Montoya when I met her. And she was my roommate and then Gloria was there and I can't think of Gloria's last name. I think it was Garcia but I'm not sure. But we had in South Quad they were actually little mini apartments. We had a kitchen with a dining area, we had the bedroom and the living room big living room area, so we slept in one, studied in the other, and then we had the little kitchen so we were always cooking for ourselves too. And then it had the interior perimeter and the outer perimeter and if you went down to the one end it was open and they had grad students. It opened so it faced out and so they had grad students and they could come and go when they wanted, but the rest of us that interior part kind of locked in. Except that I was small they had bars at one end that they went up and down and not used to having been locked in to a place I would go if I came in late my roommate would be there she'd go sign me in. I would climb up the wall the brick wall and come in through the bars. And if I wanted to leave you know, "this is ridiculous!" you know go down the bars and go out. (Gary chuckling) And then I got caught by the campus police one time and they said, "What are you doing?" I said, "I'm going back to my room", "Uh no you need to come with us." So they met with the dorm owner and they put little blocks so we couldn't climb in anymore. (laughing) And they made sure I moved off campus. 
Gary Emanuel: A wise decision. 
Sue Sissons: Yeah. 
Gary Emanuel: I actually delivered newspapers to the South Quad the Arizona Republic.
Sue Sissons: Oh okay. We used to get the newspaper. 
Gary Emanuel: Ah how fun!
Sue Sissons: We ate at the South Dining Hall. The swimming pool was under the women's gym and I worked there with my work study. I was there teaching swimming lessons and lifeguarding. That was my twenty hours a week that I did for work study. And then in the North Dining Hall even though I ate in South Dining Hall I worked the breakfast shift to help pay for my meals.
Gary Emanuel: So you worked in North Dining Hall, but ate in South.
Sue Sissons: Yeah, but I ate breakfast in North and in South the other days because I lived on the South end of campus, so that was kind of a--but they needed a breakfast cook and I was willing to get up at four in the morning and cook breakfast. 
Gary Emanuel: Well it sounds like you did a lot of working during your years while you were there.
Sue Sissons: Yeah.
Gary Emanuel: Is that how you basically paid for the...?
Sue Sissons: Yeah my mom and dad had three of us in college at the same time. So I mean it wasn't something that we could not do. We needed to work in order to be in school. And so we worked and that got my meals and then the work study helped and then also during the week I would do babysitting. And I also took in ironing so you know to help get money. It didn't pay a whole lot but I mean something was better than nothing. And that gave me a lot of spending money because I belonged to the hiking club and I'll talk about that later because that (Gary gasps) was--that has been absolutely fabulous. But they had the library was a little building if you're looking at the campus it was kind of off over. There was the old rock and they came down and the library was there in the three buildings and then you had the women's--the women's gym and then the men's gym.
Gary Emanuel: Is that when the library was up on the second floor of that building?
Sue Sissons: Yeah. 
Gary Emanuel: That's Gammage. 
Sue Sissons: Yeah. Yup. And they had Ashurst Music Hall.
Gary Emanuel: Right.
Sue Sissons: And then they had Old Main, which was at the front by North Hall. And my sister lived in North Hall in Gamble Hall while she was there. And then her senior year because she was in Home Ec.; they had a special dorm for the Home Ec. girls. And I don't remember what they called that, but some place over there. 
Gary Emanuel: I know exactly where you're talking about. 
Sue Sissons: Yeah and they had the big football field. And the football games were right there. 
Gary Emanuel: And it was open air in those days.
Sue Sissons: Yeah, mhm. Yeah the football games were outside. And I was in the marching band the first semester and we practiced outside and it snowed some of the times; it was very cold! I just did band one semester. 
Gary Emanuel: Well with all your work and so on you were busy.
Sue Sissons: Yeah and I carried 18, 19 hours most semesters 'cause I needed to get done. 
Gary Emanuel: And you did in four years or so.
Sue Sissons: I was in three years, my first year in college I went to Iowa because I played a bagpipe and they had a bagpipe band at the university in Iowa City. And I caught pneumonia three times and decided it was ridiculous I would freeze to death in this crazy town 'cause I went from living in Tucson up to Iowa and it was thirty below some winters so I just said you know, "I'm not coming back". I go to some place like Flagstaff you know where it's still snows but it didn't get that cold. But the campus was easy to get around you know I mean very few people had cars. 
Gary Emanuel:  Yup.
Sue Sissons: We either road bikes or we walked. And when we wanted to go some place in town you walked into town. There wasn't even any bus service. Now if you needed to go way out to East Flag it was some kind of a hamburger stand and it's out past what is now the Museum Club. A bunch of us from the hiking club would get in a van and we'd go on Friday nights we'd go and get hamburgers. If we weren't taying in and having steak we'd go out. Usually on Saturdays we'd go out and get hamburgers if we were in town. They were a quarter a piece. 
Gary Emanuel: You were also talking about they used to have steak on Saturday nights. 
Sue Sissons: Yeah Friday or Saturday nights. Friday--Saturday night was steak night. Friday night you got salmon and you got salmon it was, huge! It was good. And you could have two pieces of salmon. And anything else was the SAGA Southern Arizona Garbage Association (inaudible, Gary laughing) and I could never understand why because it was it was good! I enjoyed the food, but my mother was a very plain cook it wasn't anything particularly fancy it was just good old home style cooking and I thought the food was good and if you went away hungry it was your own fault. There was always plenty, you could keep going back until you were full. You couldn't get out, but you could keep going back.
Gary Emanuel: Yeah I remember being impressed by that when I was a freshman there. 
Sue Sissons: Yeah and those steaks were good. And then you got steaks on Saturday night, but you only got one. They were t-bone I guess is what they were, so you only got one. 
Gary Emanuel: Tell me a little bit about the other students could you describe them in terms of their age and their economic status, uh that type of thing.
Sue Sissons:Most of them I would say were late teens early twenties. There were a few that I knew who were older and there were some graduate students on campus that were older, but the kids that I hung around with were all I within I would say two years of my age. And I basically ran with people in education and foresters. 
Gary Emanuel: Mhm, yes. 
Sue Sissons:And a lot of my friends that I still have and still hang around they're from the forestry department, or the P.E. department, or education. And there's a group of about thirty of us that hang out together. 
Gary Emanuel: What about uh race and economic status?
Sue Sissons:I would--uh there were a lot of Navajos. We had Hopis. Uhm my roommates when I was in Cowden were both Hispanic, which was neat because I was raised on a reservation in Tucson the Tohono Reservation in South Tucson, but I was raised in South Tucson on a mission station, so having the Hispanic and the Natives I thought was really cool. Although I didn't notice that there were all that many Black students, I know there were some. I know of one in the P.E. department in the girl's P.E. department and I don't remember any in the forestry stuff. And there were a couple in some of my education classes, but I really didn't notice a lot Black people on campus. They were mostly White and then Hispanic and then Natives. And I don't remember any oriental students. We had some in the high school. The high school I went to was only 1% White. We were basically the minorities. 
Gary Emanuel: Which high school?
Sue Sissons:Pueblo. In Tucson. And we lived in South Tucson we were the only White family that was non-Hispanic in the South Tucson of the town. 
Gary Emanuel: Did you ever know Barbara Strickhars?
Sue Sissons:Yes. Barbara's a good friend of mine. 
Gary Emanuel: Is she really?
Sue Sissons:Yeah. She and I went to high school together. 
Gary Emanuel:Oh well I'm interviewing her later October. 
Sue Sissons:Oh! Well tell her I said hi!
Gary Emanuel:I sure will.
Sue Sissons:Yeah she's neat. 
Gary Emanuel: Yeah it sounded so much like her story too. 
Sue Sissons:Yeah she's a neat gal. 
Gary Emanuel: Alright...well why did you choose to go to ASC? You mentioned going to Iowa first.
Sue Sissons: I went to Iowa only because the bagpipe band. That's the only reason I went there. And I played in the band and it was fun, but it was too cold so I left. And when I got back if I went to U of A I had to stay home because my parent's said, "you're only two miles from the university we're not paying for you to live in the dorm", and I go, "uh no I think I want to go someplace else". And I had heard that ASU was a party school and I'd gone up and visited and the dorm rooms there you had a big room that was the sleeping room and there were fifteen or twenty girls and then there were things that came off to the sides and that's where the freshmen and sophomores stayed and that's all. I don't want to sleep in a room with fifteen or twenty other people no thank you. And I said, "what about NAU? I know that it's a long ways away and I know they have winter. What are their dorms like? And there were two to three girls in a room. Yeah! That's a lot easier". You know cause I thought I really don't want to be in a whole big room and then you have a little spot over here just where you put your stuff in a desk next to it. Nah that doesn't sound like fun. And also it was hot! The heat--the extreme heat but it was like living in Tucson. I want to go to NAU because I like the snow.
Gary Emanuel: Well your housing experience and you went to several different ones uh during that time. You talked a little bit about the hours and that type of thing. You did experience the hours in the other dorms?
Sue Sissons: Right. Yeah in Cowden and in South Quad there were dorms and when I was at Iowa they had hours and you had to be 
Gary Emanuel:--oh in Iowa to?
Sue Sissons: At 6 o'clock you had to sign out if you left. You had to say where you were going and who you were going with. And then you had to be in by ten and on weekends it was 11:30 or midnight something like that. And that turned out to be a problem because the hiking club frequently we didn't get back until the dorms were closed, so we were late! So the next weekend you were campused and you couldn't do the activities (chuckling). And I had my parent's permission to be out, but still you couldn't come back into the dorm because you were late. 
Gary Emanuel: Now if you would have signed out for the weekend...
Sue Sissons: You still had to be in. 
Gary Emanuel: Did you really? Oh my.
Sue Sissons: Yes. The boys didn't have hours!
Gary Emanuel: I know. 
Sue Sissons: They were just out wandering around. How come?--well put them in too! (Gary laughing) So which was kinda weird. 
Gary Emanuel: Well talk to me a little bit about the campus traditions that you remembered. 
Sue Sissons: Okay the lighting of the A on the hike that was one of the things that we did on the hiking club. We lit the A. And we would take the lift up as far as it would go and then we would walk the rest of the way to the top and there would be a signal from down on the campus that you could see because weren't all the lights that Flagstaff has now. There was a signal that they would give us to start the light and it took us about five minutes because we used magnesium flares and it took a while to get them all lit because we had to light them at several different places. And man when they lit that A it was the brightest thing. We wore sunglasses because it was so bright! And then we'd stay up there and we had to wait till the magnesium had all burned down because we couldn't leave it and go. So then we'd get done and we'd go down to JB Hunt's, Dr. Hunts', and his wife would have cocoa and baked potatoes and steak for us. (Gary laughing) And so that was always one really cool thing that we always did. 
Gary Emanuel: Now what department was Dr. Hunt in?
Sue Sissons: He taught uhm Political Science. 
Gary Emanuel: Political Science, okay.
Sue Sissons: Yeah. And he was one of our hiking club sponsors. And his wife was always there. If we were taking hikes she was like, "make sure the kids have water, make sure this is happening, make sure that's happening", she would call the mothers, she'd be okay my husband is taking care of them. We're married we have nine kids. So that the parents weren't concerned and then Thelma's family frequently went with us, she was in the P.E. department. 
Gary Emanuel: And what was that last name again?
Sue Sissons: Sandlion. S-A-N-D-L-I-O-N.
Gary Emanuel: Okay.
Sue Sissons: And Alta Preston. Was that her name? Lemme find the hiking club stuff here. Alta Preston! She did technology like home ec. 'cause my sister had her for home ec. classes. She was one of our sponsors. Phil Donham from math. Mr. Winstran and he did like philosophy man and the arts and philosophy type stuff. And Harry Butcher who did-
Gary Emanuel: He was famous.
Sue Sissons: He was very famous. He was one of our main hiking club sponsors and he went with us on a lot of our hikes. I mean Dr. Butcher's going! Okay alright! So we got--while we were hiking we got a lot of knowledge because he was constantly telling us this, telling us that. And Dr. Phil Donham from the math department and I think he was like a grad assistant. And Dr. Smallwood, I think he was a geologist. 
Gary Emanuel: Clyde Smallwood?
Sue Sissons: Clyde Smallwood. Yeah he used to go with us on a lot of our hikes. 
Gary Emanuel: I think he was philosophy. 
Sue Sissons: Philosophy. Okay. 'Cause they had him...I think he did natural science. Okay. It could be-
Gary Emanuel: He was short with
Sue Sissons:--with glasses yeah.
Gary Emanuel: With glasses. He was philosophy.
Sue Sissons: He was ...we had a good time.
Gary Emanuel: Oh yeah had some good sponsors for that too.
Sue Sissons:Oh yeah and I think it made the parents of the girls feel better because there were women going on the trips.
Gary Emanuel: So any other campus traditions?
Sue Sissons:Yeah. Let's see. Campus activities I'd say I was in the marching band and in the marching band I met John Thresher. 
Gary Emanuel:  Oh yes.
Sue Sissons: Who married the daughter of my high school principal, which I thought Well that's pretty cool! Mr. Brook. Elbert Brook. And he graduated and he taught at Glendale Community College and worked desperately to get my daughter who played the violin, the percussion, the French horn to come to Glendale Community College in his band and orchestra. She chose not to she went to Iowa (chuckling). Crazy child. Um I swam on the swim team for two years. And I don't know what category that fits in. I guess campus activities. 
Gary Emanuel: Yeah! Extracurricular activities. 
Sue Sissons: Yeah. I took skiing for three semesters because you paid $10 and I mean it was one of your P.E. classes. And we were required--as majors were required to take lots of P.E. classes. So I took skiing for three semesters it was $10 more for the skis, the poles, the boots, the ride to the lift and you were there from--you left at noon you got back at five and you picked up your lunch that morning and when you picked up your breakfast you picked up your sack lunch. You ate your sack lunch up and they gave you lessons. You were there all afternoon two days a week! For an extra ten bucks!
Gary Emanuel: That was all semester
Sue Sissons: Yeah all semester. And so that was how I learned how to ski. 
Gary Emanuel: Now in those days they even had snow...(inaudible)
Sue Sissons: Yeah they had snow from October clear to--I remember snow the day I graduated. May 3rd it snowed for graduation. It was really cold we're standing there like (makes shivering noises) and we came out and there's probably half an inch of snow on the ground. And it was snowing! Our parents came up from the valley in their little summer dresses and their hats and it's hot in the valley, we're snowing. (Gary laughing). Let's see, they used to have movies at Old Main. 
Gary Emanuel: Ohh I'd forgotten that. 
Sue Sissons:I saw "The Birds" twice by accident. Like no I'm not going to that and then I got invited again to the theatres, nope I've already seen that that's a horrible movie, do not want to go back. 
Gary Emanuel: And you remember the Orpheum downtown.
Sue Sissons:The Orpheum theatre yes we used to walk down to the--that was a good theatre. Yeah. And then there were concerts at the men's gym and Old Main. I usually went with Mike Maynard. 
Gary Emanuel:  Oh yes!
Sue Sissons: And I met him through the hiking club the hiking club that very first semester I was there. Mike was the brother that I never had that I always wanted and so he and I kind of pal-ed around together. Hey let's go to a movie let's do this, let's go eat or something. Mike and I kind of went like a brother and sister. Really good friends. Mike is still one of my best friends. He and his wife, Mary was my roommate, Mary Maynard or Mary Montoya. I introduced them and it clicked! And they ended up getting married three...let's see...five months before Ray and I did. We've raised our kids as cousins. 
Gary Emanuel:  Oh my gosh. 
Sue Sissons:They're here all the time. They're building a house over in Comoro, New Mexico. They still live in Tucson down where Mikey--near where Mike used to live. I spent part of last week with them and they were here the week before. We see each other at least once a month. 
Gary Emanuel:  Wow
Sue Sissons:And that's been a really neat relationship. But Mike and I would go every place together and then when Ray and I started dating the four of us would go places together, so were a foursome. 
Gary Emanuel: Well describe for me a typical date night.
Sue Sissons:Okay Ray worked for the highway department.
Gary Emanuel: Oh!
Sue Sissons: I mean he was not a student. He had been at ASU for a year and he decided his dad wanted him to go into mechanics, his mom into education, he wanted to be an engineer. So his dad said, "fine you can go in engineering, I'm not paying for it". So he dropped out of school. He got hired on with the state department with the state highway department and they shipped him up to Flagstaff, so he was working there. Now the hiking club had the Coconino Search and Rescue Unit as their walking searchers. Well Ray was trained in first aid. I was trained in first aid as instructors. So they asked us to teach the first aid classes to all of the Coconino Search and Rescue members. That's how we met. 
Gary Emanuel: Ohhh. 
Sue Sissons: So that worked out really neat. Because he was working for the highway department he was doing a lot of work out at the Coconino interchange, the Butler interchange and out in Winona. He was the surveyor for several of the projects out there. So he didn't get home until 6:30 or 7. He'd get cleaned up, go eat, come over and pick me up and we'd walk. So it would be 10, 11 sometimes 12 before we'd even get in. I had to get up at 4 go to breakfast--to work at breakfast. 
Gary Emanuel: (laughing) Oh goodness. And that's why campusing it or being late for those dorm hours is a problem?
Sue Sissons: Yup by the time he picked me up I would already have to be in! (Gary laughing) And I mean if we wanted to go some place or talk a lot of the time he was helping me study. I mean because that was basically my study time, so he did a lot of studying with me. On weekends he, and Mike, and Mary and I went with the hiking club if they were going someplace the four of us went. I spent most of my weekends with the hiking club and a lot of Easter and Thanksgiving holidays with the hiking club and we hiked all over Northern Arizona and New Mexico and into Colorado and into Utah. And that basically off campus other than like going to movies and stuff like that pretty much it was hiking club. 
Gary Emanuel: Almost another little family wasn't it?
Sue Sissons: Yes because there's forty--there's twenty five of us and we still get together every three to four years. We are together. We just this past May spent a week in Canada with Richard Jacobson who we called Jake. He was the president for the three years that I was in the club. And he's up in Canada at Salmon Arms and we flew up to Salmon Arms and spent a week up there. And he's the head of the British Forestry Division up there for British Columbia. He teaches the safety classes and does a lot of the equipment maintenance and if there's new things he does the ordering and provides the equipment and teaches the safety stuff plus he works out on the fires. As one of the head--he has four teams underneath him and each one of those team has four guys four to eight guys underneath them. 
Gary Emanuel: So that's why many of your memories tie into the hiking club and their activities. 
Sue Sissons: Right. And Mike was very involved in astronomy from the time he was little. So a lot of times Mike and I would go over to Lowell Observatory.
Gary Emanuel: Mhm. 
Sue Sissons: Uhm we spent a lot of time there. And that worked on my granddaughter is still real interested in Lowell Observatory and I have a membership there and I told them that I have a chair that Percival Lowell used in one of his classes. He had classes in there and I have a chair from one of those classes I bought it in an auction up there that they were having. And so I have one of Percival Lowell's teaching chairs. Which I think is cool.
Gary Emanuel: That is really interesting. 
Sue Sissons: I go up there all the time. In fact my family is supporting their discovery channel their telescope that they're now building. Other than--let's see I took--we were going to the movies...they had concerts in the boy's gym. They had anvil, they had Duke Ellington, they had Peter Paul and Mary, the New Christine Minstrels, and Kelly Limos, and one of the hiking members married one of the New Christine Minstrels. And they live down in the Tucson area. The concerts were $6 a piece. You walk over twenty or thirty minutes before the concert and sit in the front row because they just lined chairs up. And I always wanted to go to these concerts so I don't know how much money, but for $6 then we had a three hour concert. 
Gary Emanuel: (inaudible) The Binze?
Sue Sissons: The Student's Association and when the concert was over you could go over and talk to them they would sign pictures and you know autograph their pictures. You could take pictures with them. Very personable people on campus. It was really neat. 
Gary Emanuel:  You're a big band fan and I remember. The Glen Orchestra...
Sue Sissons: The Brothers Four. Um Glen Eurobur came. Let's see what else...those are the concerts that I went to that I remember. I know there were others but I don't...it seemed like they had what four or five things a year? And they had them kind of stretched throughout the year. Oh let's see they had the Winter Festival with the ice sculptures. I remember doing ice sculptures. (Gary laughing) That's cold work!
Gary Emanuel: I was going to say for someone who didn't like Iowa.
Sue Sissons: But it wasn't as cold in Flagstaff. I mean it got into the twenties and down to zero, but it never went to minus thirty and it stayed minus twenty or thirty most of the year in Iowa. It just never got warm. It was always cold. Um let's see I was a member of  Delta Phi Kappa, which is an educational honorary for physical education girls. And it's basically to promote and to further health and physical education in the schools. And I don't know whether it was a...
Gary Emanuel: I don't know.
Sue Sissons: Whether they--let's see it was Delta Phi Kappa and then the Chi Chapter. It was part of the Chi group, C-H-I group. But I mean it started in there about a year and a half, two years when I joined it. 
Gary Emanuel: Okay. 
Sue Sissons: I've got a sweatshirt.
Gary Emanuel: I was an honorary...
Sue Sissons: It was an honorary--it was an honorary educational thing it wasn't like the social sororities. 
Gary Emanuel: Right. 
Sue Sissons:This was strictly for honor students and education students in physical education. And oh and I was taking like the eighteen mostly eighteen and nineteen hours and I was on the Dean's List every semester. 
Gary Emanuel: Oh my gosh. 
Sue Sissons: I was actually a pretty good student. And then when I finished my degree I went back for my elementary degree I was in Phi Beta Kappa.
Gary Emanuel: Oh yes. Yes. 
Sue Sissons: Let's see. Off campus it pretty much was the hiking club. And we went to--we spent maybe 10 or 15 trips to Havasupai. We would just decide okay we're going to Havasupai, you drive over the top, you run to the bottom. You'd stop--when you got to the river you'd stop, you'd cook the steak that you took down, and you sleep at the top at the head of the river there. Then the next morning you'd get up drop your stuff off and then you just hiked all day Saturday and until it started to get dark you'd go back, cook dinner, and we always carried mincemeat in packages and M&M's and peanuts because you'd break off the mincemeat and it was really good and it carried with light weight and when it was gone it was no real trash and stuff. M&M's, peanuts, stuff that was nutritious, but had lots of high energy stuff in it. And water at 'Supai we drank right out of the creek. 
Gary Emanuel:  My goodness.
Sue Sissons:I mean the water was good to drink in. And there were two or three restroom facilities otherwise you just use trees. And there was one wall we all used to brush our teeth because there were two pipes coming out of it. You just stand there and rinse your tooth brush and then the water would go down in the basin (Gary chuckling). But we spent a lot of time at all the three different falls and we'd spend Sunday just playing at the falls and then around noon we'd start hiking out and we'd run like crazy to the top because we had a long drive back to Flagstaff.
Gary Emanuel: Oh that is a long drive. 
Sue Sissons: And then hopefully you got in before the dorm was closed no more camping for the next weekend. (laughing) Now Mike, and Ray, and Mary and I went down one weekend and we took our truck. We didn't travel with the rest of the hiking club and we left after them and we knew we were going to be late so we just said, "too bad we're just going to be late". And we got back later than we thought and I had actually moved off campus that semester and Mike was driving, Ray was really tired and Mike was driving and he hit the accelerator instead of the break as we went around the curve and there was a rise and he went over the rise and it took and dumped the nose down into the ground, so we were sitting kind of nose and the tail pointing up in the air. It crushed the radiator and the fan into the radiator (makes crunching noise) and the truck would no longer go anyplace. We sat there for four or five hours before somebody finally came through that was going out. People were coming in, but they said, "no no we're not going out". So we had to wait until somebody finally came out and we knew there were cars there we didn't know how long we'd be stranded. And then when we got out to the highway they were going the other direction--we wanted to go to Peach Springs they were going the other way. So we got somebody else to drive us to Peach Springs and we got a hold of highway patrol. I didn't get in until almost five the next morning. (Gary laughing) The highway patrol ended up--we had to wait for the tow truck to come and then go back with them to where the truck was and tow it out and then the highway patrol got us back to Williams, Mr. Pokett. 
Gary Emanuel:  Oh yes.
Sue Sissons: And then somebody at the other highway patrol transferred us into Flagstaff from Williams into Flag. 
Gary Emanuel:  Impressive that you remembered Mr. Pokett's name.
Sue Sissons:Uh huh neat guy. I was shaking and I think it was the shock and he wrapped his jacket around me and he said, "it's okay, nobody's hurt. It's alright. We're gonna get you some coffee". "No I don't want any coffee", he said, "she doesn't drink coffee, but give her some cocoa." So they gave me cocoa and they gave me tea and he fed us. I mean we're typical college students we don't have any extra cash and money. He paid the tow guy to tow it into Williams until Ray could go back to where he lived. He lived at the Flamingo Hotel. Go in and get some money and go back to Williams to pay him, but he paid the tow driver because when he dropped it off he said I have to be paid and then we're gone. We put about $5 on it and so we never forgot Dave Pouquette. Neat guy. 
Gary Emanuel:   That is my brother in-law's good friend. They graduated together in Chandler, Arizona. It's a small world isn't it?
Sue Sissons: Yeah.
Gary Emanuel:  He uh the last time we were up there he still runs like a fifties diner in Williams.
Sue Sissons: Really? My daughter and granddaughter like to go up. I'll have to stop in.
Gary Emanuel:  Yeah right on the main street. 
Sue Sissons: Oh cool!
Gary Emanuel:  Well tell me about any teachers or educational experiences. 
Sue Sissons: Okay Ida Bil Mcgill. (Gary gasping) She was one of the neatest teachers I had. I had her for psychology. She would stand and she would--we over looked the educational school and she used to say, "now honey don't you go and hit him with that! Don't be chasing those girls" and she'd stop in the middle of a sentence and talk to the children (inaudible) (Gary laughing). And I always sat in the back, and you would read the lecture I mean you would read the text book and her tests were either from the lecture on the test or in the book. They never coincided it was just pure guess, but you could go to the library, check out a book in psychology, write the reports and turn them in. You turned in three you got an A. and I would sit at the back and I wrote all my letters to my mom, to my dad, to my two sisters, to my friends. I did all my letter writing and she kept saying, "no you should be with that gal back in the back. Look how well she's taking all those notes." (Gary laughing) And I never took a single note in that class, but it was always amazing my brother in-law...Danny was nine when we got married. When he got to college he went up to NAU he had Ida Bil McGill and we go, "She's still there I thought she was old! She was old when I was there". Like Danny that's scary. (Sue and Gary laughing) Cause he was there like in the early 70s. 
Gary Emanuel:  And she was still there. 
Sue Sissons: And she was still teaching and I though ohhh how old is she? But she was kinda fun. But I remember Dr. Cheska was in the head of the PE department and there was Ms. Pedoric and Ms. Oswalt and they used to make us go to...we went over to their house and to learn to play Hearts and Cribbage and some other card game 'cause that's socially correct activities we need to learn.
Gary Emanuel:  How interesting!
Sue Sissons: Yes mhm. You had to learn one Saturday a month learning to be socially correct. And how to serve tea, I'd never used a you know--and they said this is something PE majors don't usually do so we're teaching you social graces like okay whatever. 
Gary Emanuel:  That was another generation wasn't it?
Sue Sissons:Yes it was! You had to wear gloves.
Gary Emanuel:  Oh yes?
Sue Sissons: And you had to wear a hat and I go I don't ever wear gloves, I don't ever wear hats, I never wear hose. I mean when I got to college I dumped all my dresses, but then I had to out and buy a dress because you had to wear a dress, you had to wear hose, you had to wear heels...I don't even own a dress!
Gary Emanuel:  Ohh how interesting.
Sue Sissons:No I don't ever have to wear a dress again because in high school you had to.
Gary Emanuel:  Mmhmm. 
Sue Sissons: And only on rodeo day were you allowed to wear jeans or pants to school. The rest of the time was either skirt and blouse or dress. You knelt down it had to touch the sidewalks. 
Gary Emanuel:   Yes.
Sue Sissons: Yup. And you had to wear bobby socks and tennis shoes or you had to wear loafers or loafers with socks. If you wore flats you had to wear nylons. Yeah nope that's not for me. 
Gary Emanuel:  And in Tucson Rodeo Week was a big time. 
Sue Sissons:A biiig time yup. In the Pueblo band we had western uniforms. We had western boots, western pants, western jacket, western shirt, western string ties, western hats. I loved the uniform (Gary laughing). And we were the only--everybody knew that's Pueblo! No body else--and it was the sham beret the royal blue with the sham beret called sham beret blue it was beautiful. But let's see I remember Mr. Keck and he was the PE teacher, Mr. Haberleck. Dr. Pederson and they did a lot of the PE classes the athletic classes that we needed. Mrs. Glendenning she was in the nursing program and she taught a lot of the anatomy science type stuff that we had to take and Mr. Jigbee Hunt I remember the Machiavellian Form of government, but I don't remember anything else from that class. (Gary laughing) And of course I had Ida Bill McGill, Mr. Booth was a math teacher. 
Gary Emanuel:  Oh yes.
Sue Sissons: And I had him for math and he also was a hiking club sponsor another hiking club sponsor. And then Mrs. Sandlon, Velma Sandlon she was the PE teacher in the hiking club and she lived in Camp Verde. 
Gary Emanuel:  Oh!
Sue Sissons:And I think she had stopped teaching when they moved Camp Verde and so a lot of us used to go down and visit Mrs. Sandlon down in Camp Verde. And Mr. Windstrand, I don't remember I think he had taught--he might have been the one that taught uhm I had a whole year of Ancient Chinese language, Man and Arts. And until this year when we had the Olympics I never used it. Never saw any real reason like why did I have to take that? And some of the stuff that they did in the opening ceremony oh! Okay that's some ancient Chinese and some of the stuff--I remember some of this...eventually 
Gary Emanuel:  It does come back to you.
Sue Sissons:Yes. And I remember having a class at school up there and maybe it was another Man and the Arts thing, they were studying architects.
Gary Emanuel:  Mhmm.
Sue Sissons:And they put up this picture of this man and I go Grandpa Frank! And he turns to me and looked at me and he goes, "What do you mean Grandpa Frank?" I said, "That's Grandpa Frank," I said, "When we were building our house in Kal Mazu Grandpa Frank would come over and he'd get all the kids together and we were designing this playground in Parkland Village and he said, "That's Franklin Wright," I said, "Oh! Okay! I've always called him Grandpa Frank!"
Gary Emanuel:  My goodness. 
Sue Sissons:But he was designing the subdivision, it was all professionals that were in the subdivision building a house there and Grandpa Frank helped us design the play ground. 
Gary Emanuel:   My goodness. 
Sue Sissons:What do you want? Well how about this over here? Well what if we do this? And I thought well this is really cool then I thought I never thought anything about him being important. And I knew Franklin Wright lived up in the Phoenix area. I never connected him until that class when I saw his picture like that's my Grandpa Frank! 
Gary Emanuel:   Oh my goodness. Now Wright went back to tour Falling Waters. 
Sue Sissons:Oh one of his structures, yup. 
Gary Emanuel:  Yup. 
Sue Sissons:Yup. I used that--I teach Geography and History using postage stamps throughout the schools and that's one of the things--when we do Arizona History and Geography he's one of the people we use and I use that one because it's like the fact of the porch with the waterfall. I think that's cool.
Gary Emanuel:  Oh yes!
Sue Sissons:That's one of the structures I use, but...
Gary Emanuel:  Now were there any of the administrators from that time period that you particularly remember? 
Sue Sissons: There was a lady and I can't think of what her name was. She was the Dean of Women. 
Gary Emanuel:  Pipes.
Sue Sissons:Dean Pipes yes, yup. Dean Pipes, yup. Yeah I remember her and...I can't think of the president's name. 
Gary Emanuel:  Walkup?
Sue Sissons:Walkup yes. And they have the Walkup dorm. You would think I would remember those names. 
Gary Emanuel:  Ohh believe me unless you look at the annual or something you'll see it. And by the way they have now taken all those and put them on a site so you would have...
Sue Sissons: That's what you would think. I have all my--it's only been three years but
Gary Emanuel:  Oh yes!
Sue Sissons: But I have all three of my I'll show you my hiking sweatshirts my hiking club shirt, 
Gary Emanuel:  Okay
Sue Sissons:But let's see...oh and I'll tell you this now I don't know how it fits in, but in 2002 I was chosen to be one of the Who's Who of American Women.
Gary Emanuel:   Wow!
Sue Sissons:And unfortunately I got all of the information about...well 2002 was kind of a bad year. 
Gary Emanuel:  Is that when you lost your husband?
Sue Sissons:Yeah. And we had the fire.
Gary Emanuel:   What was the fire?
Sue Sissons: The Rodeo-Chediski fire
Gary Emanuel:  Oh my goodness.
Sue Sissons:Three weeks later, yeah. It was bad. And about 
Gary Emanuel:   You guys were up here?
Sue Sissons:Yeah. And about four weeks later I got the stuff from that and I go and I had all these forms to fill out and I never filled 'em out and I found 'em the other day when I was looking for stuff and I go I need to get these turned in because they said they would like them when it's convenient (Gary laughing). I thought well now it's convenient six years later. He died in May, we buried him on his 58th birthday and then the fire hit three weeks later and it was just--and Grandma Florenson died the month before that so April, May, and June were really bad. But I did 
Gary Emanuel:   Wow. It came up that far from here too.
Sue Sissons:I lost a hundred and thirty five trees because it was so hot and I literally couldn't water the acre because I have an acre here. And Mike Maynard came up and two of the Forestry Guys and cut down the trees for me. And that's what Mike is building in Comoro to build his home.
Gary Emanuel:   All those trees. 
Sue Sissons:All those trees. Yup he's using those.
Gary Emanuel:  Wonderful.
Sue Sissons:He's building a gazebo an Arizona room with the trees from here. Yeah that was a bad time, but it's gotten better, a lot better. And I did the--I'm the curator at the museum and I did the fire room. I have a complete Rodeo-Chediski Fire room and I worked with NAU and their Forestry Department exchanging information and materials they've set it up as an off-site research center to come over and study and the forest service was very, very helpful in providing me maps and papers things that they used during the fire. They have these huge big sheets--okay drop here, we're doing this--and they've given me those and I have them all archived. I have a stack of boxes about this, I have probably six to eight thousand newspapers--newspaper articles on the fire, magazines. Jim Paxton has become a very good friend of mine.
Gary Emanuel:   Oh my goodness.
Sue Sissons:And I have a couple copies of his book. He's the one that came out and helped me fire proof my entire yard. He came out after the fire and worked with me. 
Gary Emanuel:  Well he became the voice and the figure for it.
Sue Sissons:Figure yep yep and I have nine tapes and CDs on the fire. And Mr. Ellis uh Dolan Ellis.
Gary Emanuel:  Dolan Ellis. 
Sue Sissons:He owns property up here so he came up and he worked came into the museum and talked to us and he wrote a song and he published it and he wrote the song like in an hour--hour and a half and he sold the CDs at $10 a piece, he took a $1 to help pay for the cost of his CDs and donated $9 of it to the Trees for the Rim Project. 
Gary Emanuel:  Wow! So you've gotten some big names to help on this.
Sue Sissons:Yep. And Marshall Trimble also came up and has written some articles and stuff on the fire, which is kind of neat. I've gotten to know a lot of neat people. 
Gary Emanuel:  Well what would you say is your clearest or most memorable memory of your college experience?
Sue Sissons:The hiking club.
Gary Emanuel:  The hiking club. 
Sue Sissons:The hiking club yeah. That's where I met Ray. It's where I have twenty to twenty five friends that are still my friends that I still pal with that we see each other three or four times a year. We email a lot we get Christmas cards. We visit each other. Now we have here in this area the Nel Cornell Hibits and her husband who's a forester they're over in Eager. I'm here in Show Low, the Maynards are in Tucson, Ellie and her husband are down in the Bisby area, Mary Jo Flower is in Wilcox, Donna Moody is in Tempi, she's gone back and gotten a degree in Library Sciences in Tempi, Eric Gunther who's uncle is Reverend Gunther the Lutheren Minister who's father was also a minister down on the reservation uhm he's down in the Tempi area also. And because Eric was related to Mr. Gunther we were able to do a lot of hikes that normally you can't do on the reservation. We had access to things on the reservation like we got to climb to the top of Mount Baldy. Very few people get up to the top of Mount Baldy because it's a sacred site, but because of Reverend Gunther we were allowed to go up and he and some other people went as our guides. We slept at Sheet Springs and then went up to the top of Baldy. 
Gary Emanuel:  Wow!
Sue Sissons:So we got to do a lot of things a lot of neat stuff here. But the hiking club
Gary Emanuel:  Do you know Mary Gunther by any chance? Or um,
Sue Sissons:Did they live out in Over Guard? 
Gary Emanuel:  Hmmm.
Sue Sissons:Cause I know Eric's parents live in Over Guard.
Gary Emanuel:  Yes they're in that area. 
Sue Sissons:Okay then they're probably related to Eric. I've heard that name so they're probably related to Eric. He comes up and visits and then he'll stop by and say hi. But there's a bunch of us in Arizona and then there's some up in Utah, Steve is in--oh and Mike Dombrosky is down in St. David. And then Steve, we called Windy, he and his wife are in California. Casey, and I've only called him cause his name is...that's not his first name. That's his last name, but we've always called him Casey he's in Oregon and three years ago we were in Oregon at his place. And then Nel or Nancy Coleman-Deets and her husband were here in the Phoenix area for four years and they have moved back to the Midwest now. And Glenda McConegal comes in from Maine. We get all these people together. And we have a good time. 
Gary Emanuel:  Nice.
Sue Sissons:And Meryl Armstrong is up in Washington, but we're still together. Let's see what else. I had a bunch of stuff written down let me (papers crinkling) look through six pages of stuff (Gary chuckling). Let's see--oh when Joan and I moved off campus our last year we lived at what was called the Spur Motel.
Gary Emanuel:  Oh I remember that and they...Yeah!
Sue Sissons:It's got a different name now. And it used to be right across from what was the front entrance and I was there two weeks ago and there's this building where the parking lot used to be. (Gary laughing) What is that!? Cause it had been about a year since I'd been there. Where did that come from? We had a room at the Spur Motel and I think probably one of the funniest nights at the Spur Motel was we'd had a hiking club meeting so Joan and I had gone off--Jim had picked us up and we'd gone off to the hiking club meeting. We came back and they dropped me off and Jim and Joan went out and Mike Maynard came over and he and I went out and this was right after I'd met Ray and so Mike Maynard and I went out cause we had some stuff for hiking club that we were gonna do. We got coffee up at what used to be the Lumberjack Café.
Gary Emanuel:  Sure. 
Sue Sissons:Now it's Grandma's something...
Gary Emanuel:  Yeah. 
Sue Sissons:And we went up and got something to eat, then came back and I got back from that and Jake was there. He needed some papers signed for the hiking club. So he and I went back to the Lumberjack and we came back and by that time it was about ten o'clock at night--eleven o'clock at night and Ray was waiting! So Ray and I went out and he said, "man where have you been?" and I go, "I've been here, I've been here". So we went out and I still had homework so he was helping me and we were over at his motel he stayed at the Flamingo Motel. We went into the lobby...
Gary Emanuel:  It's been torn down. 
Sue Sissons:Yeah it's been torn down and they've got the Barnes and Noble bookstore there I think, but we went over there and I was doing my homework and the guy says you know it's almost one o'clock in the morning and I said, "I guess I better get home and get to bed you have to get up and go to work." So I went back and I was coming in for like the fourth time and the guy came out and said, "What kind of business are you running out here?" and I go, "Well that was Jim and Joan, that was Jake, and then it was Mike, and then Ray..." (Gary laughing) "You need to come in and go to bed lady you've got classes in the morning." But it was all school related! It was kinda weird. At Christmas time they had a--the highway department had their annual Christmas party. And it was like a Christmas dinner which started at like seven or eight and then there was the dance. But we came in--I was just coming home as some people  were leaving the motel at about six in the morning and they go, "Just coming in? Better hurry up the milk man's gonna beat ya!" (Gary chuckling)
Gary Emanuel:   Those were the days. Now is the Dombrosky that you mentioned Brian.
Sue Sissons:No it's Mike. 
Gary Emanuel:  Mike okay. And did Carol
Sue Sissons:--And it was Donnelly a that time. 
Gary Emanuel:   Oh okay. 
Sue Sissons:Donnelly. Oh no it was Mike Dombrosky and then he changed to Donnelly. Now he's Donnelly. 
Gary Emanuel:  Now was Carol Maestro was she part of the hiking club?
Sue Sissons:Not that I remember. 
Gary Emanuel:  No? Okay.
Sue Sissons: She might have been when I went out. 
Gary Emanuel:  Well she would have been a year or so earlier than you. 
Sue Sissons: Okay then she might have been before--of the club before I went in, in '62 and '63 Dr. Hunt and Dr. Preston, Dr. Sanlon and Mrs. Sanlon they would take trips to Mexico and climbed the pyramids and ruins and stuff down in Mexico. 
Gary Emanuel:   Right yeah I remember one of those stories.  
Sue Sissons: But I haven't been--I didn't get on any of the trips to Mexico. The first year I could've gone and my parents said no, so I didn't get to go. 
Gary Emanuel:   How interesting. I interviewed a lady um...Killip is her last name and her husband was the principle of the high school back when we were students and she talked about her experiences in the hiking club in the 1930s. 
Sue Sissons: Ohhh! Cool!
Gary Emanuel:   And it sounds just like you were talking about. There was a whole circle of friends and they still keep in touch. 
Sue Sissons: Yup. 
Gary Emanuel:   Isn't that amazing?
Sue Sissons: I went back to the reunion last year. Steve went back and he took his wife Barb and then there was--we met up with one other person and I actually was in California and there was supposed to be another week, but they had fires so the convention I was at got cancelled and I came home. So I went to the last spur of the moment I got over there and went, but they said that there's a lady who is still alive and she's ninety something; she was in the first hiking club and she was actually at the breakfast that I missed. I didn't get in until like two in the afternoon. But she was from the first hiking club so we were trying to get back maybe this year at homecoming, but I dunno whether that's gonna pan out or not. 
Gary Emanuel:   Yeah I hope to be there too so.
Sue Sissons: Yeah that would be neat.
Gary Emanuel:   Yeah. 
Sue Sissons: But the other stuff we did with the hiking club um we went to Rainbow Bridge that was before they had--you know how the boats go up it?
Gary Emanuel:   Yeah.
Sue Sissons: You used to have to hike the boat over and that was a ten mile hike. Well we had two groups, one group went up this way and you camped on the mountain on the other side. You went up and over the mountain to Rainbow Bridge and the other group took the boat in and hiked it in to Rainbow Bridge and you swapped places. So you went out on the boat and the other camp had to go up over the mountain and hike back to their car and then drive back. We did that at least once a year and we went to all the different ruins from Camp Verde north and even up over into New Mexico and up into Utah and Colorado. We spent--we took one weekend trip to Ute University and we got there at like two in the morning. So everybody on campus was asleep but Main Hall was open so we just laid down take down first the next one would lay their head on their stomach, (Gary laughing) so we had this zigzag pattern and students started to come in and go. And our hiking club I dunno how they used to be or how they are now, but we were probably the grubbiest group on campus. Our jeans were ragged, our shirts were ragged, our back packs were old military ragged stuff. The guys all had long hair and beards I mean we looked like scraggly little things and people would go ehh. I don't want to be a part of that group. Come on we do--we have more fun than anybody else on campus! (Gary laughing) But we went and we spent the weekend with their hiking club hiking. We got there at like Saturday morning and spent all day Saturday and part of Sunday and then we were late again getting back as usual. 
Gary Emanuel:   I have the feeling the term canvas and you got along well. (chuckling) 
Sue Sissons: Yeah. Campus and--and that worked really good with Mike and Mary because Mike and I were good friends and I said Mary I have this canvas why don't you and Mike and she can have the--well Mike was we just kind of shared Mike for about a year. So it was kind of neat having them. We went let's see that was Mount Baldy. Oh and we would go to Supai, you had to pass a test to get to Supai. You had to go over and you had to put on this heavy pack and you had to run up Sunset Crater. At that point you 
Gary Emanuel:   Oh I remember that.
Sue Sissons: You had to run up Sunset Crater and then come back down. They timed you! If you didn't make it within a certain time you couldn't go. You had three chances and you also had to go hike Mount Elden and if you couldn't do the Mount Elden hike you couldn't go. You had to do those two things to hike Supai. Cause they said otherwise you won't have the strength and the stamina to go down do what we're gonna do and go back out and we're not hauling you out. You pack it in, you pack it out. And so it just--and a lot of people--now you can't even go on Sunset Crater at all. 
Gary Emanuel:   Nope. 
Sue Sissons: And we used to go down into the Lava Tube. That's a spooky place. 
Gary Emanuel:   That is.
Sue Sissons: It's pitch black! I've never been in anything that dark. And they turn off all the flashlights and go (imitates choking noise) like let's turn the lights back on. (Gary laughing) And the Ice Caves, that's the only time I've ever actually been in small caves. Other than like the one from Huckleberry Finn the one's in Missouri. 
Gary Emanuel:   Oh in Missouri yeah. 
Sue Sissons: I've been in those and then when my daughter was in Tennessee I went in the ones in Tennessee, but those are in Carlstadt, but those are well lighted. But the Ice Caves, and the last time I was there they had collapsed and you couldn't go in those the ones over by the lava tube and Sunset.
Gary Emanuel:   It's been years since I've been there, but I didn't know that. 
Sue Sissons: This was three years ago. Because my granddaughter was all excited for a trip we were gonna go and they were closed, couldn't go in 'em. See where else did we--and we would get special permission to go to the Batatican cliffs and the ones that were closed which you have to have special permission. We would get the park rangers and they would take us on special tours so we would get to go behind stuff, in and out of stuff. We had this special guide that allowed us to climb the ladders down inside the rooms and look at artifacts and put them down real careful, which was neat. 
Gary Emanuel:   Bataticans is quite a climb as in and of itself. 
Sue Sissons:Yup, yup.
Gary Emanuel:   Down those stairs yeah. 
Sue Sissons:And then we went to--we hiked all over Lake Mary, Mormon lake. And I was there like two weeks ago, Upper Lake Mary--no it's Lower Lake Mary, it's empty. You can walk across it. Upper Lake Mary had water in it. Mormon Lake was empty! I mean there's just this puddle of mud. But we hiked all over Sedona Canyon, Oak Creek, the Slide Rock. We did a lot of fun stuff at Slide Rock. We were over up into parts of New Mexico. We were busy. We spent one Easter weekend down at Supai--er no it was Thanksgiving and we were leaving to come out, we had stayed an extra day because we had extra time so we spent the one we decided well we better hike it out. Well it started to snow. So just before you start the switchbacks there's an overhang and it was a little crowded but we got eight of us underneath that overhang. And Jake is one of those he sleeps with his toes he has a sock with a hole in it. He sticks that toe out and keeps it out of his sleeping to test the air to see what the air is like (Gary laughing). So we're sleeping and we wake up the next morning and Jake's got snow on his toe and it's cold. But a lot of my stuff revolved around the hiking club. 
Gary Emanuel:   Oh yeah!
Sue Sissons:And I did the swimming team and then there was so much stuff with the hiking club I said no I don't want to swim. 
Gary Emanuel:   Now do you remember any social issues of the day impacting what you were doing?
Sue Sissons:Not really, I know in high school there was a lot of segregation and I remember going with the Pueblo band we went into a café to eat and they took orders from all of us, but they refused to bring it out to the Black children and I said, "This is wrong, this isn't right." And I said, "We're not eating here. I said if all of us can't eat then none of us eat." And I picked up my food and I threw it on the floor. I said, "Dump it on the floor if they're not going to feed our friends we're not going to eat either." We got in trouble because we threw the food on the floor not because we threw it on the floor, but because we wasted it. They had no objections to us not eating there and walking out without paying for it, but they said you should've just left it on the table. That would have been better, but they said we were totally right in walking out because there were like five or six Black kids with us. They served the Indian kids, they served the Hispanic kids, they served the White kids, and they wouldn't serve the Black kids. I'm sorry we're all children of God!
Gary Emanuel:   I'm sorry where was this?
Sue Sissons:This was at a restaurant in Tucson. 
Gary Emanuel:   In Tucson!
Sue Sissons:In Tucson. 
Gary Emanuel:   My goodness. 
Sue Sissons:And they knew who we were we were in band uniforms. (Gary chuckling) It might have been, I'm thinking it was in Tucson and we must have been at another school because normally we didn't unless we were at another town. But I know...
Gary Emanuel:   Now not much of that got through to the NAU campus?
Sue Sissons:It didn't seem--I didn't see any problems up on the NAU campus at all. I mean things were pretty much yeah you're a student and now you're here to learn so if you don't want to learn go away, but if you want to learn stay here. But that's pretty much what I saw up in uh for stuff. Oh and we've also been to Grand Falls. And we've been there when there's no water with the hiking club. We've been there when it looks like chocolate milk and we've been there when it's just running nicely. Cause Grand Falls just comes and goes it's part of the little Colorado. Oh when we get together we go hiking, we always had like a mini band. Casey plays what we call the sq-squee
Gary Emanuel:   Squeezebox.
Sue Sissons:Squeezebox, yup. Uhm he lost a hand just three months after we were visiting. He was out cutting wood and he fell on his chainsaw and cut his hand off.
(Gary makes pained noises)
Sue Sissons:So but he has an artificial one that does all kinds of neat things and then last year he lost a foot to diabetes. So we said the next time you come to the hiking club you're coming in pieces. (Gary laughing) and he says, "yup I guess I'm going to have to bring all my pieces." But he's able to play the squeezebox again. And we have so let's see Casey also plays the banjo, Jake plays the guitar, the banjo, the harmonica. We have different people that play stuff. Mike Nebrosky always played a big washtub with a pole on it with a string for the bass. We've played--we've got the banjo, the guitar, the ukulele, somebody had a violin that somebody played. We all clapped, we all sang, but we also have two tapes that I should make available to the Cline Museum. Two tapes of the songs that we all sang. 
Gary Emanuel:   My goodness!
Sue Sissons:We published a newspaper that we called the Boots and Blisters. It's in the Cline Museum. We've got copies of almost each issue that we published and they're up in the Cline Museum. But I still have the tapes that we made of all the songs and stuff that we used to sing. We sang and we'd tell stories, but that's kind of neat. 
Gary Emanuel:   That really is. I've never heard of that newspaper. 
Sue Sissons:Yeah and it's a pretty good newspaper and it's got lots of books, it's got stories, it's got recipes. It tells about our trips, the things that we did, it's got pictures in it. Want me to tell you let's see from August of '66 to June of '67 that's when I taught in Gilbert at the junior high school. From there I had two girls born; one in '71 and '72 and when they went to preschool I went with them as like an assistant teacher and found out that I really loved preschool and little kids. So I went back and got another degree in Early Childhood and Elementary Ed. And then ever since I'm primary ed early childhood degree to teach from birth to age eight. (Gary chuckling) And I'm still teaching basically in preschool and in elementary, but I do my stamp program.
Gary Emanuel:   Oh okay. Yeah. 
Sue Sissons:And I taught from...in the preschool it was '74 to let's see the present I'm still teaching preschool and let's see from 70...let me see what the date was. From '79 to '94 I taught in the Washington district as a preschool teacher director in the gifted ed program for preschoolers through the academic precocity program at ASU. And they took my gifted kids and put some special needs kids with 'em. Basically hearing and vision; kids with hearing problems and vision problems. I had the cutest little Apache boy, every other child was deaf in the family and so we were teaching--he spoke basically he was a hearing child so he spoke Apache and gobbledeegook. We were teaching him English because his brothers and sisters who were deaf one older and one younger they said aoshdahorhaof. They didn't have a language, they had basic sign. They got them into the deaf and blind school, but I had Nathan and then I had his little sister who also had hearing because the child between them didn't hear and went to the deaf and blind school. But I had Nathan and his little sister. We taught them English and they taught us Apache. 
Gary Emanuel:   Well you had inclusion well before inclusion. 
Sue Sissons:Yeah and it was really kinda neat. His family would come over to the class and they taught us how to make fried bread and these were three, four, and five year old kids. And some of those kids that I had as four and five year olds were already reading for second, third grade level. I had a little boy who was already doing multiplication, adding, subtracting, and multiplying. And they were gifted kids they had older siblings in the ASU academic precocity program and these were their younger siblings. I was working with...oh what was her name? She had read hair a little gal about my size. She was working on her doctorate in gifted ed through the university ASU and she asked me to come in and be the director of the program for the gifted kids. 
Gary Emanuel:   Wow!
Sue Sissons:That was neat and the year before that--before I started that in '78 the Peoria district asked me to come over because my early childhood stuff and help set up their developmental kindergarten program in their school district so I got to do that. And that's when the other gal asked me to come over and do the gifted preschool program after that.
Gary Emanuel:   And you say you're still working but it's with the preschool and history...?
Sue Sissons: I do preschool clear up through about fourth or fifth grade and I work Thursdays--every other Thursday now in White River with a second grade teacher and there's actually going to be five classes now. They're going to be involved in doing my stamp program. And the year that I was in--from October 2006 to October 2007 I was the director of education for the History Foundation I worked with 9,000 kids. 
Gary Emanuel:   My goodness gracious.
Sue Sissons:And most of them are in the Tucson area within a 75 mile radius of the university because that's where the foundation is. But I had thirteen other states and five other countries sending stamps and stamp programs too. And I have a brochure that I'm going to give you on their program that's down there because it's free. We don't charge for anything, we don't test the kids, we don't grade the kids, we don't--it's just to reinforce or to kind of give them a preview of what they're going to learn. And it's based on every one of our units fits one of the state curriculums. 
Gary Emanuel:   You never know where your career is going to go.
Sue Sissons:Right nope. Nu-uh.
Gary Emanuel:   How interesting. 
Sue Sissons:It just travels, but when my kids went to preschool I thought oh this is fun (Gary laughing). And I think one of the neatest things about preschool is when they're painting. You never go into a preschool and go oh red and yellow make orange. You go in and you put red pain out and you experiment for a couple of days. Take away the red paint and give them yellow paint. They experiment with yellow paint for a couple days. Take the red and put it with the yellow. Now you say, "hey come on we've got two paints today!" And the kids go--you've got a brush for each one. (Humming), "Teacher come here! Come see!" Wow what have you got here? "I got a new color!" I go, "Well what color is that? What does it look like?", "That looks like the orange", "You've made orange! How did you make orange?", "I took the red paint like this and I took the yellow paint and I made orange. Hey guys come here!" (Gary chuckling)They'll never forget that red and yellow make orange. And that's how you do preschool. Everything I do is hands-on.
Gary Emanuel:   Discover. 
Sue Sissons: Experience based discovery. Yup. And I've taught that way since '76. 
Gary Emanuel:   My gosh. 
Sue Sissons: But it's more fun with preschoolers. Oh I love the Rugrats, just give me a hundred rugrats just give me two or three--no patience with adults at all. Patience for the little guy. And do that with everything they're learning and it just makes more sense to them. Let's see and in '94--in '95 we moved up here and I noticed a little thing in the newspaper one day they said there's a historical sight and they have meetings. And they're open to the public, we do them once a month on Thursday for like seven months out of the year and you just go and they have a speaker. I went to a couple of them and somebody final says you know I've seen you before are you knew to the community and I said yeah I'm so and so and they said well we're so glad you're coming to our meeting wouldn't you like to come over to our museum we've just finished the museum. So I went over to the museum and promptly got working at the museum. Ever since '95 I've been working at the museum. And now I'm the curator and the youth activities coordinator. 
Gary Emanuel:   Wow. So did you retire from the ASRS the retirement system?
Sue Sissons:Yeah right--three months before Ray died. And I'm working on a grant program and the grant finished out so I went ahead and retired and then he died three months later. So that was another thing. I have no job, he died which stopped all the income, and we dropped from 70,000 a year to nothing. And just like that because he just keeled over dead. 
Gary Emanuel:   Wow.
Sue Sissons: He wasn't expected--I mean he'd been to the doctors and they said, "oh you'll live to be a hundred just like your grandmother." Less than two days later he was dead. So it was just like okay! This is not fun! He had retired before--two years before and so he'd set his retirement up to where it would continue until I was gone, but it took them until the end of September to do all the paperwork because after he died it was three weeks and they couldn't find me and after the fire all my mail got returned because I didn't go to Springerville I went to Holbrook because I have friends in Holbrook and my granddaughter was with me, her asthma kicked in from all the smoke. You couldn't see across the street because all the ash was settling in Holbrook. I ended up in Flagstaff with her for breathing treatments and then down to Phoenix so nobody could find me! So then finally when I finally got back up I went up to the post office and they said we've received all your mail because we didn't know where you were so I went oh thanks! So it took a while for that. So I had no income from Ju--from the fourth week in May until the end of September. And if it hadn't been for the Red Cross I probably would have lost everything. But they came in they took care of the--got a hold of the mortgage company, put all the payments at the end. They got a hold of the car my--we had just bought a car just bought a truck, they took all the payments and put them at the end. They said she will have income but not until the end of September, she'll not be paying anything, please do this. And they did! They were very cooperative with the Red Cross. They made arrangements for my electricity to be--they put it on hold. I got electricity luckily I didn't need gas because it was in the summer, the electricity said she can pay in summer the city said don't worry about water we'll worry about that at later. And they cut the bill in half because the firemen had come--the National Guard was here and if you had the sprinklers out they turned it on. My water hadn't looked that good in about three years everything was green and--because they ran water everywhere they could just to raise the humidity. And the city cut the water bill in half. And so they said I could pay it whenever it was convenient and they made a payment plan for all those four months. They said when you get money just pay so much a month. They gave me food and they gave me vouchers for food. They gave me six $50 cards so that I could get food. And then every time you came in with a voucher Safeway would say okay you've got a $50 voucher you buy a $100 worth of groceries we're kicking in another fifty.
Gary Emanuel:   My goodness!
Sue Sissons: Safeway did that for the people on their own because a lot of us--we lost 486 structures. And there were people with absolutely no homes I had a home at least!
Gary Emanuel:   Yeah. 
Sue Sissons:So it just worked out weird. But that was just kind of a bad time for the whole community.
Gary Emanuel:   Yeah. 
Sue Sissons:But then I started working and I went back into the museum--it just opened back up again and I just did the fire and then worked with them ever since. Let's see if I covered everything that I wrote down. I said that it snowed when I came out from graduation. Okay let's see (papers crinkling) some of the stuff that I've done in addition to the teaching and stuff is set up stamp stuff both in Glendale and up here is stamp exhibits with kids and I've had several kids that have exhibited internationally.
Gary Emanuel:   My goodness. 
Sue Sissons: In fact Jason Fischer as an eleven year old did an exhibit on German inflationary stamps.
Gary Emanuel:   Oh during the 30s?
Sue Sissons: And I hadn't a clue what he was talking about. He had to do the exhibit pretty much on his own. He met me at the Glendale Methodist Church and the Glendale Library. He worked on his exhibit under my direction, but I really couldn't help him. And his exhibits were taken internationally. The judge would carry them each one of the exhibits and they started entering them in the adult exhibits. He won all kinds of first place ribbons on his exhibit. 
Gary Emanuel:   My goodness.
Sue Sissons: And I had another gal that--her parents were from France and she was doing French collecting stuff and she went off to France for two years--her last two years of high school in France going to school there and came back and now she has a PhD from the U of A and she does um what do you call it interpreting. She interprets in French, German, Latin, English, and Spanish. Plus she teaches French at the university. 
Gary Emanuel:   Wow.
Sue Sissons:And I've done Girl Scouts now for twenty nine years, I've worked at the church nurseries, I do home daycare, I did foster care. Two of my girl's friends needed some foster care so I've done that. My husband and I were very involved in Odyssey of the Mind for twenty years like creating problem solving stuff. 
Gary Emanuel:   Oh yes!
Sue Sissons:Yeah that's neat stuff. He was the region director for the Northeast region for the Northern region for many, many years working on a lot of stuff in Flagstaff and Holbrook. 
Gary Emanuel:   Sue the last question that I have for you kind of fits into this. It says is there anything about NAU ASC that we haven't covered that you want to talk about?
Sue Sissons: Okay, some of the things that I did--that I learned from there that helped me to strive to help the kids to develop and maintain healthy basic lifestyles and that comes from the PE. 
Gary Emanuel:   Aha!
Sue Sissons:Because without a healthy lifestyle you're not gonna really survive. And a lot of the--learning good exercise techniques, learning good basic health stuff. All the outdoor stuff that I did and the science stuff helped to create a desire for and an interest in nature and conservation. You can develop friendships that last a life time. Uhm do activities for the joy of doing them and being with others. Finish your games, your races, and your projects using good sportsmanship and that's what's vital. Winning is not necessarily important. It's finishing and doing what you started and doing it with sportsmanship. Even as a PE major I don't stress competition especially for little kids. They need to just do!
Gary Emanuel:   That's perfect especially in the preschool. 
Sue Sissons:Yup. 
Gary Emanuel:   I love that. 
Sue Sissons:Let's see. A love of astronomy and space and part of that is from Mike, but being able to go to the observatory in Flagstaff and oh what is Brian's last name? You would think I could remember his name. he does a lot with the education stuff up there at Lowell Observatory. He's taken my daughter and my granddaughter and I for some tours up there. I wish I could remember his last name. But just if you go to college--if you really want to go to school go on to college you don't necessarily have to go on for a degree go because there's all the other stuff socially and just being there and learning the knowledge. If you get a degree that's great! But you may not stay in your degree area you may branch out and go into something else just from the people that you met just going into what they had. If I had stayed another two years I probably would have gone into archaeology. 
Gary Emanuel:   My good-
Sue Sissons:I discovered archaeology my senior year! I needed another class and I go aw man! And I told my mom I go I found another field and she goes oh no! (chuckling) You're graduating! (Gary laughing) 
Gary Emanuel:   And job opportunities in archaeology are little, little.
Sue Sissons:Yeah but it'd be a really neat hobby. 
Gary Emanuel:   Oh yes.
Sue Sissons: It's something I've done a lot with but it's something I really enjoy and I think that's kind of what got me into history stuff the archaeology and the anthropology studies and stuff. But NAU was probably four of the best years of my life. Flagstaff is still home.
Gary Emanuel:   Yeah. 
Sue Sissons: Yup. I still feel that when I go back to Flagstaff it's like alright I came home. I love going over there and just--but it's a neat place and I really wanted my one daughter to go there but she was strictly in aviation. She went to Cochise College down in Douglas. Um she's got thirteen different certifications in aviation. She taught for a year at Missouri, Central Missouri University. She managed an airport in Iowa because they had fifty acres of ground that she could mow with a John Deere tractor. So you're working at an airport managing an airport because you want to mow the grass. She goes oh yeah I love mowing the grass. But she teaches flying, she's a pilot and her husband's a pilot and they're teaching their kids to fly. My other daughter went into sports medicine and EMT and paramedics and met her husband. He's a paramedic and a fireman...her second husband. And my husband was a civil engineer plus he went into computers, really big into computers. And became the northeast coordinator for all the state the Forestry Motor Vehicle Construction and Maintenance. He was in charge of writing their programs, training personnel, and setting up computers , networking the computers, keeping them up online and running and he did that for about eight years. 
Gary Emanuel:   Wow. And he must have gotten in early on the computers. 
Sue Sissons:Well he and a couple of his friends the guy one of them is actually up here at the library he runs the computer lab. They were in high school together. They went in when they were in high school and changed all their grades on the computer. (Gary laughing) Then they moved up and on and they got caught and had to change them all back. But he started computer stuff in high school. But he still wanted to be an engineer but he was writing engineering programs on the computer and it just evolved into that. And then our youngest daughter the one that was EMT paramedic she got real heavy into computers and she had a really good job with Courtesy Chevrolet she does their computer stuff and works with Mr. Gruel who is the head of it. 
Gary Emanuel:   Well Sue this has been delightful and this is Gary with The Annual with the interview of Sue Sissons and we are signing off on the interview now.