The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.

A Visit With Don DeWees

by Denise Bankes, Astoria South Fulton Argus (used with permission - courtesy of the Argus)

Don DeWees is a familiar face around Astoria. He has been an educator in the Astoria School District for over 30 years and has been active in the community in other ways as well. He is currently president of the Lions Club.

Don moved to Havana from southeast Tennessee in 1950, and still has a hint of a southern accent. He and his wife, Betty Ann, live in Astoria. "She has tolerated me for almost 42 years," he said. Don and Betty Ann have three children, Julie, Todd and Tim; and two grandchildren, Sydney and Timothy.

Don graduated from Western Illinois University in 1964. He landed his first teaching job at Deer Creek-Mackinaw, teaching sixth, seventh and eighth grade science, seventh and eighth grade math and boys physical education with "70 boys in one little bitty gym," as Don puts it.

"We didn't have a track," Don said. "We got out and ran on the baseball diamond. I put up high jump standards with bales of straw. We made our own high jump standards and pole vault standards, it was all homemade stuff. The janitor lived next door to me down there. We'd get together and cobble up something."

When Don came to Astoria in 1967, he taught boys physical education, geography and biology. He returned to school in the summer and took the classes required to teach driver's ed.

Don coached for several years at the beginning of his career in Astoria. He was head varsity basketball coach for four years and then coached at the junior high for two years. He was assistant football coach and helped coach track with another faculty member.

Although Don has been "retired" for two years, he still teaches two health classes and one driver's education class at Astoria High School. Now, about this driver's ed stuff does Don have nerves of steel or is he just plain crazy?

"I've had kids who have gone from the grass on one side of the road to the grass on the other side of the road, just back and forth, back and forth. We have been in the ditches several times and we've had to walk back to school a few times," Don said.

"I've had a student drive with two wheels on and two wheels off the road for two weeks. I could have reached out of the window and taken mail out of the mailbox. I'd push the wheel over and she'd get back on the road, then pretty soon there we'd be again, going bumpity-bumpity-bump down the road."

C'mon Don, you can level with us, who are the better drivers, boys or girls?

I've had some girls who were excellent drivers. When they started out, some of them had very little experience, but they paid attention to what was going on. The boys, in general, try to impress everybody with how fast they can drive. But I've also had some boys who were excellent drivers."

In Don's early years of teaching, he caught a student cheating on a test so he gave him a zero. The student decided to get revenge, so he stole a car out of the school parking lot and went to find Don, who was with students in the driver's ed car.

"He came gunning for us and tried to hit us head on, but Gary Kimbro, the boy who was driving, had enough sense to get over and out of the way. This kid got us from front to back, tore the whole side off the car."

By the time Don returned to school, the culprit had returned the car to the parking lot and ran home.

Did Don have any other driving adventures?

"Oh yes. I had a girl several years ago who had never driven anything before. The first day we drove, she got behind the wheel and said, "I've never driven before.' I said "Fine, we're going to go straight ahead out of this driveway and back on the highway and drive nice and slow. When we come out of here, you're going to have to turn the wheel left.' Well, she turned the wheel left but before we were out on the highway. We were down in the ditch and it was soft and muddy. I said, "You're going to have to give it a little bit of gas to get it out of here. She floorboarded it and the mud flew clear up over the top of the car. Now we're stuck. One of the other students in the car had driven quite a bit because she was a farm girl. She got behind the wheel and drove and we pushed it out of there. We got back to town. That was the first day."

The next day they drove in town. "Down here on the south end of town, there's a little street that goes downhill just a little bit. As we came down that hill I said, "Now you're going to have to slow down.' She didn't hit the brake, she hit the accelerator. We went between a power line pole and the guy wire, right out into these people's front yard. The people could have come out of their house and got in the car. That's the second day."

The next day the student drove, they went to a church driveway in Bader. "Coming out of there, there's a little steep grade," Don said. "I said, "Okay, now when you come out of here, you've got to give it a little bit of gas, turn the wheel right and look left.' She floorboarded it and turned the wheel hard right and we went right into the bank and wrinkled the fender. I couldn't get out of my door. I had to crawl over the seat to get out of the car. I said, "That's all that for the day.'"

Did this poor student ever improve? According to Don, she wiped out a gas pump at a service station when she first received her driver's license.

Some of Don's students didn't ever get a driver's license. "Two or three of them," he said. "Not girls, boys." (Being a woman driver, I'm glad he cleared that little point up.)

Don is a firm believer in teaching parallel parking but some students seem to have trouble getting the hang of it. "I've had kids parallel park and end up with both wheels on the sidewalk and not know it. "Do you notice that there is anything wrong with this thing?,' I asked. "No, Mr. DeWees.' I said, "Well, put it in park, shut it off, get out and walk around the car and see if you can see anything wrong here.'"

Don always anticipates problems. He has a brake on the passenger side and has learned to keep his left hand on the middle of the seat in case he has to grab the wheel quickly.

According to Don, his closest brush with death came when a student was attempting a left turn. A semi had stopped behind him and everything looked good until a car came flying around the semi to pass, just as the student was turning left.

"Now what do you do?" Don asked. "Do you hit the brakes and pull the wheel back and get rammed by the semi? Or do you hope that Little Joe (Curless) mashes on that accelerator to get you out of the lane, He did. If the other kid had been driving, we would have been killed."

This just goes to prove that a brush with danger is not always the student's fault, according to Don.

"Another day we were getting ready to make a left turn at Shawgo Memorial Home. A car passed us on the right side. I heard a little click on the side mirror and you could hear his tires rubbing up against the curb and he's going fast. I don't know, it's crazy stuff. The kids will say, "Well why did they do that?' Brain drainage, I guess, I don't have a clue!"

Is it this treacherous every day?

"If you're not paying attention, you'll have close calls every day with kids driving, I don't care if they're the best drivers in the world."

Are kids different these days? According to Don, kids are just kids and there have always been challenges, although he did say that discipline was administered more frequently years ago.

Some of the toughest kids Don has encountered are friends of his now. "Some of the toughest kids that I had a little fatherly chat with once in awhile have come back to me and said, "I wish you would've talked to me harder and more.' "

Others failed to listen, with a few landing in prison.

One student learned a lesson that "marked" him in a unique way.

"One boy, a big, strong kid, never brought deodorant to PE. He'd just go down the row of lockers and find a can of spray deodorant, use it and away he'd go."

"One of his classmates said, "I'll fix him.' He brought a little tester can of red paint, put a Right Guard label on it and put it in the locker. The big kid grabbed that baby out of there, used it, and he had red paint under both armpits."

"He was going to kill that kid," Don continued. "I said, "Now wait a minute. No, you're not.' All the kids were laughing. Well, he settled down, saw the humor in it and learned a lesson from it. From then on he brought his own deodorant."

Don played basketball, football, baseball and track when he was in school. He still enjoys sports and has stayed involved by officiating at basketball and football games. He became registered to officiate in 1964 when he was attending Western Illinois University and started officiating full-time in 1972. He has officiated everything from grade school basketball games to varsity finals in basketball and football.

Don has worked more than 20 boys Regional finals and two boys Sectional finals as well as several girls Regionals. "I wish I would have kept a record over the years. Girls Sectionals, I don't know how many I worked. Girls Supers, four, five or six. I worked the Girls State Finals one time and I went back the next year and worked the final game."

He retired from officiating basketball games this past season, but will continue with football. "I went to state finals in football this year. I'd like to go back at least one more time before I quit. They usually allow you to go back three times."

How does a referee handle irate fans?

"A lot of that you turn off. You concentrate on the ball game and take care of your business. They're just hollering. They're just fans. I personally have never thrown a fan out." And angry coaches?, "In 30 years of officiating basketball, I probably haven't called 20 technicals on coaches," he said.

Don has officiated in Quincy's Thanksgiving Tournament for 13 years, with some of the best teams in Illinois playing.

"The first year, Chicago King won the state. They were undefeated, they won the state and they were the best team in the United States that year," Don said. "The first night they played Chicago Leo, which was the class team of the Catholic league."

"Here I am, 5 feet 11 inches and here's a kid, 6 feet 10 inches and another one 7 feet 1 inch and I'm throwing the ball up in between those two big birds."

Another player was wearing what looked like a wristwatch. "I went over to Sonny Cox, the coach of Chicago King at that time and said, "He can't wear that watch while he plays.' The coach laughed and said, "Don, he can't take it off. It's a tracker bracelet.' He was a drug dealer out of Chicago, he had gotten caught, and he couldn't leave the state of Illinois."

Don has witnessed some humorous situations. "I saw a coach one night, a good friend of mine, who had a call go against him. The ball bounced to him. He took that ball and bounced it hard on the floor and the ball came up and hit him on the nose, bloodied his nose!"

"One coach was so mad, the ball came to him and he punted it to the other end just as we were calling a time out," Don laughed. "He was embarrassed. I've seen coaches kick the bench and then sit down because they think they've broken their toe."

Three games were played the night Don officiated at the Hancock County Tournament finals. After the first two games, spectators had to leave the gym and then pay again to get readmitted to the final game.

"There were a bunch of people, I believe they were from Warsaw, who got there early and then they had to get up and go out and pay to come back in again. There were a lot of fans who had their fur turned wrong. They weren't in a very happy mood."

The fans were everywhere, standing under the basket three and four deep, out in the halls peeking around the corner, the building was packed.

"My partner and I were refereeing the ball game and it was up for grabs, it was wild! I mean loud, you couldn't blow your whistle loud enough."

The other referee made a call and the ball happened to roll over in front of four men from Warsaw who weren't happy with the call.

"The guys from Warsaw knew me, some of them had played when I had officiated. You'd hear them say, "C'mon Don, give us a call, or C'mon Don, give us a little help or hey, you missed one there,' which is alright. That's part of the game, you know."

"Well, anyway, the ball rolled over there and my partner went over there to retrieve it, and just as he bent down to pick it up, one of those guys kicked it. My partner didn't call a technical, he just went to the principal and said, "I want him out of here.' This is right on the front row. I went and got the ball and I was standing right there in front of them and this guy was saying, "Don, Don, don't let him kick me out. I'm sorry I did that. PLEASE don't let him kick me out.' "

"His buddies weren't on us, they were on him, giving it to him, harassing him. It was funny, you had to laugh. The next time I saw the guy at a ball game someplace, he said, "Don, why did you let him kick me out?' "

Apparently Don enjoys living on the edge, since he also drives a school bus. When asked about this occupation Don said, "The worst thing about driving a school bus is when kids throw up, because the driver has to clean it up."

One girl got sick every day and her mother blamed it on Don's driving. But the girl's sister finally spilled the beans when she mentioned that the family had to sell their car because of the odor from the girl's frequent bouts with car sickness.

Well, there you have it, a glimpse into the life of Don DeWees, teacher/referee/bus driver. It's a wild life, but somebody has to do it. Our hats are off to Don DeWees, who has been doing it well for over 30 years.