Ruth (Baird) Alcorta 1970 to 2008
MCDERMITT - Probably few people in Humboldt County have ever heard of, or know where Galion, Ohio, is located. Living in rural Nevada with all the mining, road construction and agriculture, you may be familiar with the heavy equipment that until a few years ago bore the same name as the town. The Galion Iron Works was founded in 1907 and became famous for building some of the largest horse-pulled type graders in the industry. If you look around today you may spot some of the later equipment they produced, such as the Galion road grader at the Home Ranch in Orovada.
McDermitt Combined School outstanding educator, Ruth (Baird) Alcorta, was born in Galion in 1948 to Fred and Doris Baird and grew up on the family farm a few miles away, in Morrow County near Edison, Ohio. A village of about 400 people, Ruth attended first through sixth grade at a school in Edison that was similar to many here in Humboldt County. She spent her seventh-grade year in Tucson, Ariz., before her family returned to Edison, and due to school consolidation she started high school in Mount Gilead, a slightly larger town of around 3,500.
Ruth enjoyed playing the sousaphone in the high school band-maybe because she loved to watch the games, especially football, and as a band member she got to watch them all! She was a member of the Future Teacher Association, and enrolled in cosmetology school from which she graduated during her senior year in high school. She says that she had a very good K-12 education and graduated with 92 class mates.
Enrolling at Ohio State University (home of the Buckeyes), she paid her way through two years of college working at a beauty shop. She went to summer school and by her junior year, due to a shortage of teachers, she was able to get a temporary teaching certificate that required only two years of classes, including six credits of teaching methods. She landed a position teaching Language Arts, PE, and Art in Chesterville, Ohio, during the day while she continued her own education at night school. By the end of her senior year she only needed summer school to earn a four-year degree in Education.
Ruth missed her college graduation in September of 1970 because by then she had already started a new adventure out West in Nevada. She had sent in her resume to three different places-one to the school she had been teaching at in Chesterville, one to South America and one to Humboldt Country. Because of the teacher shortage, she wasn't even asked to come for interviews. All three places asked her, "If we send a contract-will you sign it?" She eliminated the one at Chesterville because she wanted to go someplace different. The one in South America was first grade and Ruth felt she was better suited to teach about sixth grade level. She was intrigued with the idea of multiple grades in one room and so teaching the upper four grades in Paradise Valley, Nevada, seemed like the answer. She looked Paradise Valley up in a book but, she couldn't find it! Finally a map showed it as being located in the Humboldt National Forest. Her brother-in-law still teases her today about her forest and had his picture taken by the sagebrush to show folks at home what Ruth's "forest" looked like!
Trees or no, Ruth loved Paradise Valley and the small town life. She liked the outdoors and made her way around the town on an old-style bicycle that the community liked to tease her about. One year she was invited to go for several days on a cattle drive. Two of her students, Will and Lisa Hall's dad, Bill and fellow rancher Bob Thomas ran cattle together in an allotment and they needed a cook's helper for the drive. It was a short time position that was both new and fun.
During the seven years that Ruth was in Paradise Valley she met Patti Albisu-who worked in the office at McDermitt Combined School-at the track and field play day that McDermitt held every year. Because she had her hair in pigtails and was wearing a tie-dyed T-shirt like the kids, Patti wanted to know if she was a teacher or a student! In February of 1977, Patti invited Ruth to come to a dance in McDermitt and there introduced her to McDermitt resident John Alcorta, whom Patti had gone to school with from kindergarten through their senior year. In June of that year John and Ruth were married in the little church in Paradise Valley.
They lived in an apartment across from the school when they first settled in McDermitt and then in a trailer at John's parents, Simon and Bernice Alcorta's place. Later they had a trailer in Reeve's Trailer Park and in 1992 they bought the Lasa place on the east side of town.
Her first year in McDermitt she taught seventh grade-and she "retired" in 1978 to have their daughter Rachel, with plans to not return to teaching. They needed a math teacher so she came back a year later and then again 'retired' in 1980 when son Mathew was born. She "unretired" to fill in for 10 weeks at the end of that school year, and gave up "retirement" permanently when Principal Jerry Rockstead told her that summer that he had four vacancies, and she may as well pick what she wanted and sign the contract!
She was told that she was crazy when she chose the self contained eighth grade class of 15 rambunctious students, among which were Ed Dufurrena and Kristen Echave. She numbered their seats #1 through #15 and encouraged them to challenge each other, academically, for seat #1. If anyone did and won, they got to switch places. She had a great time with the students and is proud of the fact that every kid in the class was in seat #1 sometime during the year. A couple of years later she and Sue Russo were able to introduce an "ability group" method of teaching reading, math and English for sixth through eighth grades. Johnna (Falen) Bruhn (MHS 1988) says that she believes that the fundamentals she learned in junior high math from Mrs. Alcorta is the reason she still loves and uses math in her everyday life today.
It was at this time that Darlene (Echart) Albisu (MHS 1965) returned to teaching and she and Ruth team taught for a while. Ruth had only junior high students until 1999 and then she started teaching high school geometry and math proficiency classes. When Barb Ferguson retired she added a social studies class to her curriculum until she retired for the last time in 2008.
In 2002, while on the way home from a picnic with Frank and Darlene Albisu, John and Ruth were in a one car accident that took John's life. Then alone, Ruth's sister Mary Baird moved to McDermitt to be with her and took the position as science teacher at MHS. It was an honor in 2003, to receive the Veterans of Foreign Wars Teacher of the Year Award when Mary, Darlene and John Moddrell nominated her and kept it a total surprise.
When she retired four years ago Ruth continued to sub at the school but with her kids living elsewhere she decided she would like to live close to one of them. Rachel (Barrett) (MHS 1996 Valedictorian) is a nurse practitioner at the Vanderbilt Hospital in Nashville, Tenn., and the mother of two of Ruth's grandchildren, Cyla, age four and John, age two. Mathew (MHS 1998 Valedictorian) is a lineman for Lyon County Nevada and has four children-Quintyn 12 years; Harley 5; Lexi 3; and Zoey 1 year old. When deciding where to go, Ruth (who you remember grew up in Ohio) said that Nashville was, "Just too damp and humid!" So-after 42 years in Nevada, teaching seven years in Paradise Valley and close to 30 years at McDermitt Combined School-in 2010, this converted desert rat chose Stage Coach, Nev., near her son's home to spend her retirement years.
She does have time to travel now-to places like Nashville (of course), Ohio, and Wyoming to visit family and friends. While in McDermitt she started taking a story telling class in Winnemucca and she now enjoys traveling around telling stories. She memorizes the first and last chapters of a book and then tells the middle in her own words and has given presentations in Paradise Valley, Orovada, Carson City and the McDermitt school and library. It is an art that was more popular before TV but she has found that most kids like being told a story rather than having the book read to them and it is fun for her. Ruth also enjoys going to the Stage Coach Senior Citizens to knit with friends and she keeps plenty busy substituting at the school in Silver Springs.
Ruth would like to remind the kids in McDermitt to, "Believe in yourself, work hard-and you 'WILL' succeed."
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