I don’t know exactly when I decided to be a journalist, but I do remember the first person who told me I could do it.
I was a student at Los Altos High and one spring I joined the staff of the Lance, our biweekly newspaper. Our adviser was a young teacher, just out of Chico State. Her name was Marlene Maselli – later Marlene Schuessler. She was a mentor and friend for half a century.
She died this Easter Sunday after a battle with cancer. There can’t be a funeral now, because of the pandemic, so I thought I might tell you a little about her and what a difference she made in my life.
In her class long ago, I learned all the fundamentals of news, from writing headlines to meeting deadlines. These were the tools I used when I did indeed go to work as a journalist at KRON-TV in San Francisco and later, when I covered Congress, the White House and the Supreme Court for the ABC-TV station in Washington, D.C.
Tools are important. But it was her encouragement that changed my life. My parents were spartan in their praise. Miss Maselli was generous with hers. After just one semester in her class, this is what she wrote in my yearbook: “It’s too difficult to include all of the accolades that I would like to include – but here goes! You’re great Robin – that’s it!” She then listed what she felt were my talents in her friendly, looping handwriting. What a wow this was to an insecure teen. Today, I’m thinking of all the students she lifted up during her long career in education.
She had a huge smile and seemed to beam her way through life as she moved up at the district, married husband Duane, settled in her Los Altos home, and nurtured her daughter Gina. Most recently, she spoke with great joy of her presidentially named grandchildren: Andrew, Truman, Reagan and Madison Jackson. Their father works for the governor of Nebraska. Too far away, she often said; but she was not ready to leave her native California, so she and Duane traveled frequently from their present home in Los Gatos to the Cornhusker State.
Her grandfather was an immigrant who produced olive oil in the Central Valley. I knew she loved the history of our state, so I dedicated my first book about California to her. When I learned she was gone, I didn’t know what to do, so, fighting tears, I went for a walk. On my route, the answer struck me: I must write about her, of course. She would have encouraged it. In fact, I think she did.
Robin Chapman is a journalist and a Los Altos native.
