THE INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
Oral History Office
SUBJECT: American Association of University Women
INTERVIEW WITH: Jean Longwith (1 Tape)
DATE: 13 February 1995
PLACE: San Antonio, Texas
INTERVIEWER: Maria Nora Olivares
O: This is an interview with Jean Marguerite Longwith on February 13, 1995, in her home at 210 Quentin Drive, San Antonio, Texas, 78201. The interviewer is Maria Nora Olivares, for the American Association of University Women.
Jean Marguerite Longwith's contribution to the community has been recognized in numerous ways. She was inducted into the Women's Celebration and Hall of Fame in 1988. She was elected as one of ten outstanding women in San Antonio by the San Antonio Express and News and as a Headliner by The Women In Communications. She established the Radio and Television Department in San Antonio College, making this field of study available to hundreds of students, many of whom are nationally known communicators who attribute their success to this outstanding teacher.
Ms. Longwith, please tell me when and where you were born.
L: I was born right here in San Antonio, Texas. This is my home and my parent's home. They are a family that came from Tennessee to Texas. And in that particular aspect of it we had the Marshall family, and several other family groups, that came here to live in San Antonio, and they had a ranch. I think every Texan had a ranch in those days. My mother rode horseback, side-saddle, with her beautiful skirts hanging down on each side of the horse. She was full of life and energy and a marvelous pianist who should have, really, had a career, but who stayed home to take care of me. So you might say I'm the cause of that. But she was a wonderful, wonderful mother and I owe everything to her. I think I ought to say that. My father, I didn't know well because he went back; he was seriously ill, and his mother was a nurse, and he went back to Indiana so that his mother could take care of him and nurse him until he got over this bad problem whatever it was, I don't remember now, if I ever knew. And so we hardly ever heard from him. And so I have, you know, I don't know much about him or how he lived. His name was Harold Eugene Longwith, and my mother was Mary Frances Marshall. And the Marshall family, quite a few of them, lived in San Antonio at that time. And I think had ... they all had very interesting lives, much more so than mine.
O: Ms. Longwith, where did you go to school?
L: Well, I went to school right here in San Antonio at one of the elementary schools that my mother taught at. She just took me to school with her, you see. And I had ... that's one of the reasons that I think I made it through elementary school so fast, was because I was in a room with students that, you know, were two different ... in those days the schools had like two different grades in the same room and the same teacher. And so she could bring me along and have me play in the corner Jean Longwith (Tape 1 of 1)
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while she was teaching. But I learned so much that way because I was exposed to it every day as a child before I really started to school. And finally I started to school and I got promoted, not because I was so smart, but just because I was exposed to it so much. And I remember a wonderful principal, and head of the art department, by the name of Wrather, Ms. Wrather, Aleene Wrather, was mother's supervisor and principal of the school where she was teaching. And mother did all the music and the drama and all of that for the students. But she was a wonderful principal and she used to tell mother, mother would send me to her office if I had been a bad girl, and so she would tell me that she had eyes in the back of her head. And so I'd go around and look to see if I could find them. (laughter) But I have some really weird stories like that I can tell. But she was a wonderful supervisor and mother enjoyed teaching very much; she was good at it. She was a good teacher. And quite a good musician as well. So this was very interesting. The fact that she really should have been a concert pianist. Today, with her talent and the good teaching she had from ... John Steinfelt was her teacher here in San Antonio, and he thought she was wonderful. And he encouraged her and tried to get her family to send her to France, to Paris, to study piano so that she could become a pianist. And unfortunately they would not do it. They just had the old fashioned idea that women didn't do that, you know; you weren't supposed to Jean Longwith (Tape 1 of 1)
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have a career. That was all right, for mother to teach lessons, to teach music lessons, but it was not all right for her to go to Paris, France, to study. That's how times have changed. Got off on that instead of talking about my going to school here in town. I did go to school here, to elementary school, and then to Page Junior High School; and then to Brackenridge High School. And the main reason I went to Brackenridge was because it was easier for mother than dropping me ... having to drive clear over here to Jefferson High School and drop me off and then go back to her school. So she said, "You go to Brackenridge because it's closer to my school." She was at Robert B. Green. And so Brackenridge was just a few blocks away. And that way was more convenient for us. So I went to Brackenridge High School. Then I went to San Antonio College, and then to the University of Texas in Austin. And that's a story in itself. (laughter) Shall I talk about it?
O: Sure. ................
L: Well, I went to the University of Texas in Austin still thinking that I was going to major in journalism. And, once there, I was having a lot of difficulty because everytime I had to get up and talk or make a book report or anything, I would just get scared to death. I'd be so afraid, so frightened at the experience of trying to talk in front of a class. But at the University of Texas I had a wonderful professor who encouraged me and taught me to look at different persons in Jean Longwith (Tape 1 of 1)
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the audience and feel that I was just talking to one of them. He said make it a one-on-one experience. Well I started trying that and it worked. So I became a speech teacher. My first degree. therefore, was in speech, with an English major too. Then I decided to go back for the masters. And I went back and got that in theater. And then I went to the University of Iowa and studied there, to get involved with radio and television and film, particularly film. I was very interested in film, and really wanted to major in film. So I went to the University of Iowa, which had a wonderful Department of Communications, and there ... and I taught there as a graduate student, you know they do this, I taught there as a graduate student. And also worked on my Master of Fine Arts degree, which was actually going to be a PhD, because I took all the tests, three day oral tests and the three day written tests, and he said you might as well, you know, go for the PhD. But I hadn't finished my dissertation. And he had a stroke, my boss, Dr. Mabie, had a stroke. So I came home to Texas; my mother was ill and she needed me. So I came home to Texas and kept thinking I'd go back and finish the PhD, but I never did. He got a little bit better, was walking with a cane, and I thought maybe I was going be able to make it. But I would have had to start all over with another man, and I didn't want to do that. And he had another stroke and I knew that it was only a question of time before he would die. And it was just not Jean Longwith (Tape 1 of 1)
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really a good idea for me to try to go back then. By that time I had started teaching here in San Antonio and I really didn't want to leave. I had a good job; I didn't want to leave. So that's the way that ended. But I am glad to have that Master of Fine Arts degree because that means a lot to me. I had such fine teachers up there at the University of Iowa, just wonderful teachers.
I started teaching at Mark Twain Junior High School and I loved the students there. They were at that wonderful adolescent year of their lives where they were changing and growing and learning so fast, and it was so much fun to work with them and watch those bright little minds just taking on the whole world. And I really loved my junior high teaching. Then I went to Jefferson High School; well, I went to Tech High School and then to Jefferson High School. And taught at Jefferson for ten years. I did ......
While I was at Jefferson High School I also worked for the City of San Antonio ... (laughter) ... working with the Summer Dance Festival put on by the City Recreation Department. I did that for years, from 1952 to 1969. I put on a show every summer. And we had beautiful scenery and we had wonderful dancers, the kids just loved to ......... It was a lot of fun, I enjoyed that so much. So I did have that going on the outside ... (laughter) ... at that time and I began to join organizations at that point, too. And ... non-profit groups ... and to work Jean Longwith (Tape 1 of 1)
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with them. And I was really very proud to be made a member of the Delta Kappa Gamma Society, Beta Chapter, which is the second oldest chapter in the world, today, of teachers who have been honored for being ... having the potential ... for being good teachers. So I joined that group. And then from there I joined AAUW. I don't know the exact year that I joined, but it's been a long time. (laughter) And I've enjoyed this organization so much that I became a life member. I wish I had done that with Delta Kappa Gamma too, but I didn't. But I did with AAUW because I thought that was important. I knew that it was an organization that, as long as I was teaching, that I would want, you know, to stay with. So I began to do other things like that and finally I was on the Bicentennial Committee at that time in San Antonio, and in charge of the Speakers Bureau and I'll bet I made about ninety-two speeches it seems to me, during that period that we were honoring the bicentennial. And San Antonio was really strong in support of that idea. So we did that.
There were a lot of things that I got involved in that I truly enjoyed, that gave me a chance to do other things. Finally I was asked to come down to San Antonio College and start a Department of Radio and TV and Film there. And since that was what I was qualified for more than anything else, I thought that was where I belonged. So I made the move to San Antonio College. I think that was 19 ... I'm going to say 1954 Jean Longwith (Tape 1 of 1)
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... 1955 I believe ... that I did that, made that change. It was a very drastic and scary change to make. (laughter) But I decided that's really what I ought to do, is get into my own field. We didn't have a department there. We had one class, I started with one class in Radio-TV-Film, and about twelve students. And then the following semester I had a couple of more classes. And we began to look like we were going to have quite a lot of interest in this field. Communications was very important and this was just the ... video was really opening up and there's great need for it in the community. So I said, okay, let's try for a regular Department of Radio-TV-Film, which is what we did. And Dr. Nail was the vice-president of San Antonio College at that time, and he was very interested and very helpful, very helpful, in getting it started. And Dr. Ron Lucke, who was the head of the Speech Department, was extremely helpful to me as we began getting everything done. [Interviewer states that title should be 'Mr. Ron Lucke.'] We had to build a radio station so that the students had the real experience of working on the air. And so we ... I found a man by the name of John Sierkovich, who was working out at Southwest Research, and he said, "I'll build your radio station for you free-of-charge if you'll just let me come and do it at my own speed." He said, "I expect you to pay for my gasoline and that's all; but I'll build it." And he did it! Can you believe that? Oh, I was so lucky! I think back on all the Jean Longwith (Tape 1 of 1)
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things that happened at that point in my life; what a big turning point it was. And how lucky I was to have friends and co-workers that were so good. Because everybody pitched in and we just had a wonderful time building a department. I had wonderful students. Some of my students that I taught at Jefferson High School came on to San Antonio College and took courses there in radio-TV-film. And one of them really has been outstanding. He has gone on to become extremely well-known in Washington, D.C., as a feature writer for the news department of the television station there. And he's extremely good and well-paid for it and a marvelous young man. His name is Arch Campbell. And he's one of the students that has probably done more than almost anyone, as far as the kind of work he's done and the kind of reputation he has for being so very good. So I'm real proud of Arch. I'm proud of many, many of my students, whether they became somebody very important or not. Some did, some worked in the field. For example in, about ten years ago, I started counting ... I started counting how many of my ex-students were working at KENS-TV. There were nineteen there at that time. And, in addition, there were some working over, you know, at the other stations.
And another thing that was a big help to us, was cable TV. It came into San Antonio and they set-aside a certain amount of equipment for students to use. And the people that wanted to try their hand at developing a program. So we had our Jean Longwith (Tape 1 of 1)
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students down there working part-time and that was a tremendous advantage, that they could do that. Because otherwise, you know, if it had been ... trying to go into professional broadcasting, that would never had happened, although some of them did, but it would have been a much slower process had it not been for the help we got from the cable TV company.
So I was on the committee, advisory committee, for cable TV for the City of San Antonio for three years, and enjoyed it very, very much. Glad I did it. Cable TV has its problems, and we all know television has its problems, and that video has its problems; but, on the whole, I don't know how ... what would have happened? ... would computers have still become as popular as they are if we hadn't had television cameras to worry about? And you know, all these communication things are so important to what we make of our world. And I would say to my students, "Remember that you are there to represent the people who need to know. And so you're not doing this because you have a special interest one way or the other; you're doing this because this is something people need to know." And I think that most of them felt that way about it. I mean, their work was their pleasure. Most of my ex-students have always come back and said, "Oh, I'm so glad I did this. It's been my ...." Now, not all of them stayed in the field, that's obvious. But the ones who didn't stay in the field, actually, as an occupation, used it as a hobby; used it as a leisure time Jean Longwith (Tape 1 of 1)
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activity; or just were better communicators because of what they'd learned. You can't write newscopy without learning a lot about how to write a story, a news-story, and so you know this is the kind of thing we were doing. We were into public relations. We encouraged them to be excellent, as far as using the camera is concerned, and they did learn how to use studio cameras as well as outdoor cameras.
So this was ... and film was a big issue for awhile there, but at that time, the students lost interest in film, and all they wanted to do was video. Radio, audio, video. So our film classes did not prosper as much as the others did. But when I left San Antonio College to retire, there were, I guess, around three-hundred and fifty students enrolled in the daytime in our radio-TV classes, plus additional students at night, because we opened it for night classes. There were so many people that wanted to learn how to use a camera or how to, you know, work with audio. So there were so many people that were eager to come that were working in the daytime that we started night classes, in addition to our heavy day schedule. So that was exciting and it was wonderful to watch it grow as it did. I miss the students that I loved so, and I worked with, and so many of them that I felt close to. And I miss those students more than anything. I love retirement. (laughter) But I miss my students, I really do.
O: What year did you retire?Jean Longwith (Tape 1 of 1)
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L: 19 ... I retired in 1960 ... no, 1983, 1983. I went to San Antonio College in 1964, left Jefferson High School and went to the college in 1964. And became ... just gradually went up as far as from assistant professor to associate professor to full professor and then when I retired I got professor emeritus, which was a nice honor to have. And I enjoyed my work there very, very much. Wouldn't take anything for it.
I stayed out of teaching. I didn't tell you this, but I stayed out of teaching from 1950 to 1955, and worked professionally in the field of communications, in radio-TV. I worked as a copy-writer for an agency, a commercial agency. I worked as a producer. I worked as a director. And all of these jobs that I held like this, the main reason I wanted to do it was to find out for sure what it was I was responsible for teaching my students. And to be a good teacher, you have to know a good bit about how to do something. Not that I really think you have to be able to do it better than the students, that's ridiculous. But you do need to know what's really involved, and by doing it yourself you really learn. So I stayed out for five years, working, to see if I could do it, if I could make a success of it. Because it was a hard time for women; it was hard to break in to radio or television or film. The men didn't have any big problem because things were really happening and they were putting on more and more people. But it was hard for a woman to get in; there were very few women Jean Longwith (Tape 1 of 1)
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on the job at anything that was commercial or even non-commercial, non-profit type things. It was very, very difficult. And I didn't ... I never had any real problems with the men with whom I worked. This is interesting because I didn't make any real effort to be a glamour-girl, and I didn't try to use the schooling, the academic schooling I had had. I didn't try to make that obvious to anybody. I stayed very quietly in my little corner and learned what I needed to do, as a copywriter, for example. And then I worked in a news department and I stayed right there working in the studio, but not going out. I was to write ... re-write news from inside. Which worked fine, I enjoyed doing it and I learned a lot from it. And being producer and director, I enjoyed those years very much. And when I was at the University of Iowa, I wrote several plays which were produced and put on the air there, and were live productions and then they were taped and played again. So I had a marvelous experience there of actually working in the television station itself, instead of just in the school situation. And that was fun.
And then later on I went to a very special seminar for people in the field of radio-TV-film and communications, public relations particularly. And this was held up there in Michigan. I went up for that and truly enjoyed it. And that was four weeks, in which I would have had some of the best directors and people in the business, from all over the United States Jean Longwith (Tape 1 of 1)
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and Canada, as teachers. And they were just marvelous. Oh, I enjoyed that four weeks. As a student again, you know, it was fun to go back and go through all of that with them.
One of the things I think that I did that was ... might be interesting to people, was I commuted to Austin for ITVA meetings. I finally organized a chapter, a San Antonio chapter, in 1979. And this was an international television organization for everyone interested in radio or television or anything except professional broadcasting. In other words, all the corporations were beginning to hire people, on a regular basis, to come to work for them and they would do their public relations and they would do their internal memos to the people who worked for them, and so on. So there was a great need for a lot more capable people in the field of radio-TV-film. And so that was one of the things I learned when I was at this seminar, was that how many people in Canada were making a living that way. So I came home and started it at our college. So that students who wanted to work, not as professional broadcasters, but as non-profit organizations, as corporate organizations that wanted their own studios and their own staff. And so we had a lot of students that were working in places like that. For example, one young man was working in Denver and stayed in that field and made a great deal of money in the field, because he was well-paid for what he did and yet it was all non-commercial as far as ... I mean it was not what we call professional Jean Longwith (Tape 1 of 1)
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broadcasting. So it was interesting that we had an ITVA organization here in San Antonio. It's still going strong. And I occasionally ... I'll tell you, I was a charter member of it and really put the first program together, and since that time it's changed a lot because people do come and go in this field. It's, you know, unlike most fields you don't just get a job and stay forever; there's a lot of moving around. People change jobs and they're curious about what is happening over here, what is happening over there, so they do something different. But I think that was ....
And I enjoyed another thing ... another thing I enjoyed so much was my work with cable TV. I guess everybody knows that I did enjoy that. And I was on the advisory committee when it was first came to San Antonio and I cannot remember the exact date, but when we first had it. But the cable TV was interesting and I did a series of programs ... well, the first of all I started some seminars myself, at San Antonio College, for people who were not taking classes from us but who wanted the experience of a workshop. So we did workshops and all the club people in San Antonio, people that belonged to organizations and clubs and so on, who wanted to learn how to use a television camera came down and took our workshop courses at San Antonio College. And it was a kind of a combination between AEUW and San Antonio College to do this for people. There was no-charge except for enough for the Jean Longwith (Tape 1 of 1)
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materials that we were using. We had a good workbook for them. And AEUW people really got interested in helping and spreading the word that it was, you know, available to people who were interested in learning. So that was fun. We did programs which we put on on cable TV, half-hour programs, dramatizations, more like a documentary is what it was, of various things that were interesting to AEUW at that time. And we got a grant from AEUW to continue doing this work. We produced quite a few programs which are on a different type of tape now. They're no longer, you can't play them unless you happen to have one of the old forms of VCRs or just you know totally different from what they were then. And so we cannot play those tapes. I still have them, but it would take a very special studio that would have a ... recorder ... that would play that kind of tape. Because that's the way things change. You have to be ready for that; you have to have all the training that you possibly can get, as soon as you can get it, and then be prepared to work! (laughter) And change whatever you have to learn new, that's new. That's indicative of this kind of work. You know. The kinds of things we do. So ....
One of the interesting things that happened to me was the chance to develop the radio-television-film department for San Antonio College. This was in 1964, when I first made the change from Jefferson High School to San Antonio College. And the first thing I did, was with my one little class that I had. Jean Longwith (Tape 1 of 1)
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I prepared and conducted a research project in which I sent off to all the radio stations and advertising agencies and public relations people, anybody in the field of that kind of communication. And I asked them what the employment possibilities were, and the educational needs that employers felt that they had, so that I could build a program at San Antonio College that would meet their needs. And I received a seventy-two percent response. Now that was a very unusual sum of answers that I received, and many of those men that were, remember there were no women in the business hardly at that time, but some of those men took time to set down and really write me a long letter saying what we should be teaching, what they wanted to recommend. So I really appreciated that. And as a result I began to buy ... to build up what we called the syllabi for each of our courses at San Antonio College. As we'd set up a new one, and add it to the ones we already had, then I would work up those syllabis, which are very important to have as a record of what the content of your course was and how much you did in the way of hands-on activities for them so that they had an opportunity to practice what they were learning about. So this is what we did. We ended up with, oh, thirty-five class sections in 1983, with three hundred and eighty students, per semester, majoring in RTF.
Now, in order to do that we had to build a radio station and John Sierkovich did this for us; just letting him go and Jean Longwith (Tape 1 of 1)
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letting him work. I think I've already mentioned that to you. And he supervised the operation of KSYM, along with me, and we finally got it staffed. We used ... finally at least sixty students had an opportunity every semester to work on the radio station and do this work. As ..... and then we constructed, in addition to the five audio studios we had by this time, we then put in a color television studio and some editing studios and equipment like that. And so by 1983 we had around what I figured three hundred and five thousand dollars in equipment, alone. Which was very, very good indeed. And we had seven full-time faculty members and five part-time faculty members, and five staff members and student assistants on top of that. So we had a large departmental budget. But what happens is that, when a teacher leaves down at San Antonio College or any of the local ACCD colleges in San Antonio, I'm sure they're all the same now, but whenever a teacher would leave, instead of being able to replace that teacher, they would tell you ... no, you can't do that, you can have a part-timer. But a part-timer could only teach one or two classes. So that meant three classes that went down the drain, if you didn't have teachers for them. And it was very hard to find anybody in our field who could do this. Some of the local people have masters degrees. But not very many of them at that time had masters degrees. And so, they were not really eligible to teach at San Antonio College without it. It was very difficult to Jean Longwith (Tape 1 of 1)
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get somebody. And times ... at times it seemed almost impossible, because the college would say you only have two part-time teachers, but you can't have a teacher for those other three courses. And so you've lost those. And so then your student load went down, and your budget depended upon how many students you had. So it was like a vicious circle, you know, you couldn't pull out of it once you started losing teachers. If you lost a teacher for any reason it was terrible because you could not replace that teacher. And this is one of the unfortunate administrative problems that I encountered. Which, I don't know if there was any way that I could do anything to change it. I tried hard to make them realize that this was not the way to go. Part-time teachers are fine, and they have a great deal to offer, don't misunderstand my feeling about this. But the fact of the matter is that teachers that are on the staff, part of the thing, they're there and they can hold ... they'll hold a title when they're available to students to come for conferences. And they will help students that are going out with equipment; they'll go along and just, you know, see that they use it correctly. Help them, where the student needed help, on outdoor activities, or shoots as we call them. And so, you know, the part-time teacher didn't do any of that. They came in and taught their one hour and said bye-bye and they were gone. So your students were not getting really the same kind of help that they got from full-time teachers, faculty Jean Longwith (Tape 1 of 1)
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members. This was not good. And it's hard to make anybody realize, you know, how important that was, because our hands-on activities that we had going on in our classes, in addition to the academic approach, we had the technical approach of knowing how to do these things. And so it was really hard for our students, and hard for our faculty to keep that going. The load would land on us. I had to teach night classes. I didn't want to drop out those night classes, but I had no teachers willing to do it. Because they were, you know, carrying their harder loads where we had people leave and then we'd try to make up for it by taking more students in each class. Well, that's not good either! And so there were a lot of questions, a lot of hard issues to cover, because things were changing so and the college was trying so hard to do, I guess, more with less money spent to do it. And in the end it comes back and hurts your teaching position. I'm sorry to say.
We had an advisory council of representatives from the industry, right here in San Antonio, who came to our school about once every month or two months. And they would ... we would do some little demonstration, or let them see some of our new equipment, what we were using to teach by. And they would give us really good suggestions. We had a very close relationship with quite a few people here. We had internships. I think I've already mentioned that, at the cable television situation, we had internships for students. And then lots of Jean Longwith (Tape 1 of 1)
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ways to learn how to do things. And that's why our students got a good beginning. When they would go up to other four-year colleges, when they left us, they were always greeted with open arms and hugs and ... Oh, we're so glad to have you. ... from the teachers at North Texas and East Texas and TCU, because our students already knew so much, technically, that they could do. It's one thing to know what's in the textbook, or what's academically the thing to know; it's another thing to be able to really do things too. And they could, our students could do that. Because that's ... we made that part of our program because of the advice we got from the industry when I first started. That really paid off; that response to my questions of what should we teach. So what we taught was based on what they told us to do. And it was very, very good. It was real good. So we ended up with what I consider a very good department. And we went a long way toward starting lots of students in the field who could do things, and all sorts of different things. 'Cause, communications opens many of doors; it really does. If you're good at communication, there's just all ... if you lose one job there's always another you can do that may be different and more fun. Who knows? But the students really enjoyed their work. And most of them were very serious about it. When it was time to be serious they were ... they took it very seriously; they tried to run a good radio station. They tried to do a real outstanding job of the video Jean Longwith (Tape 1 of 1)
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programs that they built. The only thing that I was sorry to see not as progressive as the television, was the film. That costs so much. You see you can't ... you don't have the budget to teach film they way you would like to. That's a very costly ... just the handling of the equipment and all, it's very, very difficult for students to do. And so very dangerous, in the sense that many things get broken that shouldn't get broken ... (laughter) ...
After I retired from San Antonio College I put a lot of time in on voluntary work for organizations to which I belong. And I also worked as a consultant. I did a consulting job for Incarnate Word College. They were just beginning to buy equipment for their classes and television production. And I taught one semester for them. And then I, you know, helped them with the installation and acted as a consultant on what they would offer, the kind of content they would offer on their TV production classes. And I did that for a number of different colleges in Texas who would come up and ask me, you know, help us work out a program that would be suitable for our students. Each one would be different. I also did a lot of reviewing of textbooks and working on publications that - where I wasn't the ... I wasn't doing it really for the money involved, but because of the efforts to get better textbooks and that kind of thing. I was glad to be able to do that sort of thing. And the libraries use that. Then I went to the San Antonio Jean Longwith (Tape 1 of 1)
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Public Library, for instance, and gave them a production class, a workshop, in how to use ... they had bought some equipment for ... video equipment, and so they needed, you know, a little advice and help in using it. So I went down there and gave them a workshop. And I gave another workshop at St. Philip's College. And I gave another workshop for the Episcopal Church, because they wanted to learn more about how they could use video cameras in their Episcopal Churches in this area. So I did that.
I never did get around to doing documentaries that I really wanted to do, and had planned to do. Because there was always something else. Jean, come do this. Jean, come that. You know. And ... (laughter) ... so I didn't ever ... never did get around to the documentaries that I had planned, that I wanted to do when I retired. Maybe I'll do that yet.
I haven't written the book that I thought I was going to write either. I was so sure, and I started work on it. And part nof it... one chapter of it was published in a magazine. (laughter) But I never did get the whole book finished. And it's still on the shelf and I keep looking at it every day, thinking ... when am I going to get back to my book! (laughter) And finish that book! I would like to, 'cause there are a lot of things there that I think need to be kept, you know, as a part of the work that I've been doing all of these years. So I'd like to do more of that. Jean Longwith (Tape 1 of 1)
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I have done critiques and coaching for a lot of the actors in San Antonio. For a while I directed stage productions here in San Antonio. I did some of that while I was still teaching at San Antonio College; just directed a play. (laughter) As part of the deal! Anyway, yeah, and I think another thing that I'm kind of proud of; I was asked to serve on the Curriculum, RTF Transfer Curriculum Study Committee, by the Coordinator Board. The State of Texas colleges and universities all get together with what they call a Coordinating Board. It gets a lot of criticism, but it also does a lot of good. And in this case I think it certainly did because we got together with all the four-year colleges, including even the colleges that were not part of the Texas system, but were ... like SMU ... private colleges. We got together with all these people that were teaching television, video or audio-visual things, and we ironed out all our agreements on what should be taught in each class so that we could say those courses would transfer to any university in Texas. As a result of that, our students could go out assured that what they had on their credit, 'cause at first you know, most of the four-year colleges just didn't think we knew what we were doing. (laughter) Speaking about that! So it was kind of interesting to be on the Coordinating Board and to work on this transfer of credits, and I'm very proud that I did that. That was probably about the last thing I ... and that was after I had retired. But the understanding Jean Longwith (Tape 1 of 1)
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was that when I was appointed that I would be the Vice-chairman. The Chairman was the Head of the Texas University System in Austin, and I was to be the Vice-chairman. And I was to be in the group, not as a faculty member from San Antonio College, but as Jean Longwith! Which at the time I didn't appreciate the value of that, but I did. Later on I appreciated the value of that. Because it did give me a little bit more clout to speak my piece. Frankly, junior colleges are not ... don't have much chance against the big four-year colleges, with so much in the way of equipment and all, you know. And they just think, well, they're just a little junior college, they don't know what they're doing. But we did pretty well I think. All things considered. And so I was proud of that.
And I think, going back to some of the recognitions that I have received, that you should know. I've been a speaker at the NAB conventions, been panel member at the Educational Broadcasting Conferences. And I helped to establish the Film Festival; it was part of the ITVA. And I was nominated at one time, by the faculty of San Antonio College, the whole faculty, for a Piper Professorship, which would have been nice only I didn't win it. But I was so proud to be nominated by my own fellow teachers; that was a highlight of my career. Then I did receive the "Outstanding Career Woman" of the year from the San Antonio Express, and that was nice. And I also did "Today's Women" that the San Antonio Light developed. And I Jean Longwith (Tape 1 of 1)
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had the Headliner Award, which is a very fine award, from Women in Communication; and I belong to Women in Communication since 1980 or so. And I was named Mentor of the Year one year; that was fun. And I won a "Silver Bowl" from ITVA that year; which was nice. Just for being Chair of the organization as they were getting started. Beta Chapter of the Delta Kappa Gamma Society named me a "Key Woman Educator," and I've been a president of that group, and been on state committees with that group. It's a wonderful organization. And as a result of all of this I was listed in Who's Who in American Women and Who's Who in the South and Southwest and Who's Who in Personalities of the South, which is nice. And I'm listed in the International Platform Association as a speaker, and in the Directory of American Film Scholars, I have that award. So I've been very fortunate to receive many wonderful awards. And one of my favorites is Zeta Phi Eta, which I got at the University of Iowa when I was up there working. I started directing in the television studio and I ... we put on many plays and dramas that some student had written, that some professors who'd written plays. Some were just examples of the kind of thing that you do with a thirty-minute play on television today. And so we put those on. At the University of Iowa they'd had a television studio but it was not on the air so we had to go out of town to produce these plays out of town. And I was directing the plays. The first time I ever did it my hands shook. The pencil holding Jean Longwith (Tape 1 of 1)
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... that I was holding in my hand absolutely shook with fear! That was the first time. I got over that quickly and I began to enjoy my work so much there, as a producer and director of the television shows that we did. We did quite a few of them there.
END OF TAPE 1, SIDE 1, ABOUT .. MINUTES.
SIDE 2.
O: Ms. Longwith, with all of your accomplishments, I can understand why you own a notebook four inches thick of awards and letters of appreciation. Thank you for sharing information on your life and career.
END OF TAPE 1, SIDE 2, ABOUT .. MINUTES.