Re: POW Finally Gets HS Diploma

Date: June 07, 2004

"Richard Crow finally receives his high school diploma
By Susan T. Wehren Of the News-Times

Richard Crow of Toledo tries on the cap and gown he will wear tomorrow when he receives his diploma from Toledo High School. Crow, 71, dropped out of high school in 1953 to join the US Army. A state law makes it possible for veterans who dropped out of high school to join the service return and receive the degrees they missed. Crow's wife, Florence, and his two daughters, Cindy Hoeft of Creswell, and Julie Rhoades of Toledo, and his grandchildren will be on hand for the celebration that is to follow. (Photo by Susan T. Wehren)

For those attending the Toledo High School (THS) graduation tomorrow (Saturday) be sure and look closely, for there will be a stranger in the line.

Sandwiched between 17-, 18- and 19-year-olds earning high school diplomas this year is a 71-year-old.

It is not as if Richard Crow is new to Toledo, in fact he probably taught some of the parents of students standing in line with him. It is just that Crow dropped out of high school 54 years ago to join the US Army.

He already has a college diploma and he completed the General Education Diploma (GED), but the THS sheep skin will give him a stamp of approval that is making his family proud.

It was at the urging of his daughters, Cindy and Julie, that Crow decided to take advantage of a state law making it possible for him and other veterans to receive their diploma.

This will not be Crow's first THS graduation. He attended each of his daughter's graduations, one in 1973 and other in 1976, and while teaching at the school he saw his students collect their degrees.

Crow started high school in Lemmon, S.D., and dropped out in March 1950 right after his 17th birthday. With two brothers and a cousin he signed up for the US Army.

This was not the first time Crow had dropped out of school. He had tired it once when he was an eighth grader. But he decided the job he found, picking up rocks in a field, was not going any place so he returned to school.

Then, Christmas of 1949, he learned his cousin, Dale, and brother, David, were going to enlist. Crow asked them to wait until he was 17 in March and he would go, too. A third brother, Eugene, also signed up.

A picture of the four smiling young men in uniform is in a picture album Crow has at his home in Toledo.

Three months later the Korean War started and the four men found themselves sailing across the Pacific taking part an event that would shape the rest of their lives.

By the first of September David and Dale had been killed, Eugene was injured and in a hospital and Crow was taken as a prisoner of war (POW) by the North Koreans.

Crow was part of G Company 2nd Battalion 38th Infantry Regiment Second Division from Fort Lewis and the men were to hold the line on the Nakton River. Crow was a gunner with a hand-carried 57mm recoilless rifle.

He was captured Sept. 2, 1950, and was held captive for 37 days. "We were told the last thing we wanted to happen to us was to get captured. We were told they were not keeping prisoners," says Crow.

He was one of 82 prisoners liberated by American forces, and was taken to a hospital where he was able to telegram his parents to let them know he was alive. It was in the hospital he learned that his brother, Eugene, also had been hospitalized there.

The Red Cross gave the released prisoners toiletries and made possible the two telegrams the soldiers could send home to loved ones. From the hospital Crow was transferred to Camp Carson, Colo., and when he went to get his first paycheck the POW was astonished to learn the Red Cross had docked his pay for the toiletries they had given him and the telegrams he had sent. It took almost two full paychecks for Crow to pay back the Red Cross, he says.

Today Crow meets on a regular basis with other POWs in a support group at the Veterans Administration in Portland. He is the commander for the Department of Oregon Ex-Prisoners of War.

About his experience in Korea, Crow says, he was part of the United Nations troops sent to protect South Korea. "I was proud to be there," he says.

Upon returning to the states he trained recruits and was stationed in Camp Carson, Fort Benning, Ga., and Camp Irwin, Calif. In March 1953 Crow was out of the service and he returned to Lemmon were he earned his GED and helped run a family service station.

By December he and Florence Quamme of Hettinger, N.D., were married. She was a teacher and their friends convinced her bridegroom that he, too, should become a teacher.

The two enrolled in Northern State Teachers' College, now North State University, in Aberdeen, S.D. Crow used the GI Bill for school and the diploma he received in 1955 from that school put two teachers in the Crow household.

Florence found a job in Igloo, S.D., but it was harder for her husband. Eventually he combined four jobs - bus driver, teacher and coaching basketball and track at Igloo.

When they learned the Igloo school was closing, the two bought a camper and put 8,000 miles on it traveling around the United States and Canada looking for a place to live.

The liked Oregon and Florence started teaching in Sweet Home, but eventually the two ended up working for Lincoln County School District. She was in Siletz and Sam Case, then in Toledo at Mary Harrison. He started at Toledo Middle School before transferring to THS where he taught industrial arts for eight years.

Crow later taught drafting at Newport High School and worked for a weatherization program at Central Lincoln People's Utility District. Later he started a drivers' education school in Newport, drove dump trucks and did landscaping.

Thinking back, he says, he can only remember one time when the fact that he did not have an high school diploma might have kept him from getting a job.

That was when he tried to get back into teaching and a younger person was hired. That teacher only stayed at the school for one year -but Crow has lived in Lincoln County since 1964. This is his home, and after tomorrow he will be able to attend reunions for the Toledo High School Class of 2004."