This month Waterford USD is celebrating Lucille Bishop Whitehead as a part of #WomensHistoryMonth.
Lucy was a bright child and lifelong resident of Waterford. During her childhood, school in Waterford was held in a two-room school house with one class downstairs and another upstairs. After graduating high school two years ahead, she went on to become a Middle School teacher, eventually become one of the founding initiators of the Sixth Grade Outdoor Education program. It was Mrs. Whitehead’s love of the mountains that led to the camps being held at Old Oak Ranch in the Sierra Nevada’s. The Old Oak Ranch was fairly primitive and provided a great place for students to “rough it out” for a week. Other schools followed Mrs. Whitehead’s example, and soon the Stanislaus County of Education was also using Old Oak Ranch for all of the sixth graders in the county.
Mrs. Whitehead retired from teaching in 1984 after a 43-year career as a teacher, during which time she had the privilege to teach three generations of students. She passed away on January 1st, 2011, in the same house she was born in. Her contributions to education and her legacy in this community, and across our county, continue to be remembered.