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REVERED SR HIGH TEACHER GENE DESOTO DIES
DATE: Saturday, August 23, 2003 BYLINE: By CHRIS SMITH THE PRESS DEMOCRAT DEMANDING YET ENCOURAGING, VETERAN ENGLISH INSTRUCTOR INSPIRED GENERATIONS Gene DeSoto, the old-school English teacher who drilled the rules of composition into the minds of thousands of Santa Rosa High students, died Friday. DeSoto, a World War II infantryman who taught for 51 years and retired reluctantly just last June, was 78. ``He was hard. He was the one of the toughest teachers I ever had,'' said Julia Stamps, the championship runner who was in DeSoto's class as a senior in 1997. But she also holds DeSoto as the best, clearest and most committed instructor she ever had. She went from Santa Rosa High to Stanford. ``He is the reason I can write,'' said Stamps, echoing the sentiment of generations of survivors of the man some called ``Mean Gene the Grammar Machine.'' DeSoto was one of Sonoma County's most acclaimed teachers, a taskmaster who could bring his charges to tears but also spared no effort to help them succeed. He received many honors, including the Santa Rosa School Board's surprise announcement upon his retirement that a two-story classroom building to be built at Santa Rosa High will bear his name. A trim and vigorous man who coached track for many years and reared six athletic sons, DeSoto seemed to be in good health until two weeks ago. His wife, Marian, called 911 when he was stricken at their Santa Rosa home Aug. 8 by what he thought was a heart attack. Doctors at Memorial Hospital discovered that a large tear in his esophagus had given rise to a severe infection. Marian and five of his boys were with him at Memorial when he died Friday morning. DeSoto, who called himself and almost everybody else either ``Coach'' or ``Coacher,'' greeted new students with a military scowl but slowly revealed his warmth and humor. His twin legacies are the many former students who credit him with changing their lives, and the fellow teachers inspired by his demanding yet encouraging style and the inviolably silent order of his classroom. ``He was so tough and sort of terrifying when you first went into his classroom,'' remembered 1985 graduate Linda Green Burns, now a history teacher near Chicago. She said the way DeSoto taught students to write -- by pushing them to find and correct the weaknesses in each paragraph before writing the next -- was the main factor in the 4.0 grade-point average she maintained in college. She said she teaches her students by the same method. Texas attorney Celeste Robertson said DeSoto is the reason she can write clearly about any topic, whether it interests her or not. ``What a disciplinarian,'' said ophthalmologist Dan Lightfoot, a Santa Rosa native and member of the Class of 1966. He remembers the boundless encouragement DeSoto heaped on those students and athletes who resisted the temptation to say they couldn't meet his expectations. ``He was not happy if you gave up,'' said Lightfoot. ``If you tried, he was full of encouragment.'' A fellow Santa Rosa High English teacher, Mike Daniels, remembered that many years ago, when he was new to the school, he shared a classroom with DeSoto. One day, DeSoto worked quietly in the back while Daniels stood ineffectually at the board and the students did as they pleased. When the kids were gone, DeSoto told the young teacher, ``You don't have to take that. Soon you'll make up your mind not to.'' ``He was right,'' Daniels said. ``I took control.'' John Bribiescas, the English Department chairman at Santa Rosa High, visited DeSoto's room virtually every school day for the past 20 years. He said his friend taught in a way ``that most people don't even understand anymore.'' ``I've never known anyone even remotely like him,'' Bribiescas said. ``He taught kids that self-esteem comes from living an estimable life. He taught me that.'' DeSoto grew up in Berkeley and graduated in the Berkeley High Class of 1940. The attack on Pearl Harbor the next year prompted him to enlist in the Army ``for the duration.'' He served throughout the war and fought in the D-Day invasion and the Battle of the Bulge. Upon earning an English degree from St. Mary's College in Berkeley in 1952, he was offered a job teaching at St. Mary's High School. He taught also at Irvington High in Fremont before he and Marian moved their young family to Cazadero and he went to work at Santa Rosa High. That was in 1964. For the next 39 years he taught writing and perseverance to students gutsy enough to enroll in his class despite all the talk of how tough he was. ``Although my immediate aim is to help students read and write well about individual literary works, the ultimate goal is to promote the pleasurable study and love of literature that will last a lifetime,'' DeSoto wrote in 2001. ``Each day, I realize education is not a product but a never-ending process in which students realize their potentialities, a never-ending process in learning about life: tolerance, justice, courage, compassion, pride and reverence.'' In addition to his wife of 56 years, DeSoto is survived by sons Jan DeSoto of Santa Rosa, Chris DeSoto of Rohnert Park, Doug DeSoto of Middletown, Dennis DeSoto of Elk Grove, Wes DeSoto of Kentucky and Craig DeSoto of Hawaii; seven grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.