Jack Allen:
CLASS OF 1959
Bellevue High SchoolClass of 1959
Bellevue, NE
Jack's Story
After graduation from BHS I studied journalism at the University of Omaha. Years later I did graduate level work at Institutes for Organizational Management at Colorado, Notre Dame and Southern Methodist Universities.
I had a diverse and highly interesting career in Bellevue, where I edited the Bellevue Press and Bellevue Guide and was founding ediror of the Bellevue Leader; served as chief probation officer for the Sarpy County Court; was public relations director for the Bellevue Public Schools; was chief executive officer of the Bellevue Chamber of Commerce, and was director of the Strategic Air Command Museum. While I was Bellevue Press editor the paper won major honors from the Nebraska Press Association. While at the Bellevue Public Schools I organized and staffed the bond issue campaign that built Bellevue West High School. While Chamber CEO the organization won reaccreditation by the U. S. Chamber of Commerce. While managing the SAC Museum the museum doubled attendance, nearly quadrupled revenue and became self-supporting.
I had numerous opportunities to take positions in other cities, including the Tampa, Florida, area but in the end decided to stay "home". Had I married my fiance (see below) I would have soon become the CEO of a large corporation on the east coast that her family owned.
While working in Bellevue I was active in a lot of organizations and projects in Bellevue, Omaha and Sarpy County. For example, I was one of the three adults that built a youth center (it's now the Reed Center and rented out by the City of Bellevue for events). I also served as chairman of an Omaha-Sarpy County-Cass County committee that selected the Kennedy Freeway route that was recommended to the Nebraska Department of Roads. In 1980 I received the Harlan Lewis Memorial Award for Outstanding Civic Service. I was the last community leader of that generation and the Lewis family wanted me to be the final recipient and ended the award because those left who could be honored had never worked with Harlan or knew him.
One of the best parts of my life in Bellevue was a close association with the Air Force. I call my Christmas card address book the "Colonels' List". Ninety percent of my cards go to friends I met at Offutt ('tho all aren't retired full birds or generals).
I knew a number of SAC commanders-in-chief, including Russ Daugherty, who I'm proud to say called me a friend. And I had a good friendship with the last SAC CINC, General Jack Chain (his successor General George Butler doesn't count because he destroyed SAC -- there was a tee shirt that asked on one side "Who killed SAC?" and on the other side was the answer: "The Butler did it." a joke the general hated). Jack and Judie Chain were great people and I enjoyed flying with them to Barksdale AFB for a SAC Bombing and Missle Comp and another year to Vandenberg AFB in California for SAC Missile Comp. I "knew" General Curtis E. LeMay when I was a kid because daughter Jane LeMay's best friend was a neighbor of ours. And it was a great pleasure and honor to spend a lot of time with General LeMay in the four years before his death. On a visit to Offutt not many months before he died he gave me the two-star US Army Air Corps flag that hung behind his desk on Tinian island in 1945 when he commanded the B-29 bombing campaign against the Japanese islands (he knew that my dad had worked on B-29s at the Martin Bomber Plant in Bellevue). Earlier he had given me some photos from his USAF retirement ceremony and a watercolor portrait of him, years after he retired, that had been commissioned by an organization he must have spoken to. It is a cherished momento and is proudly displayed in my library. When General LeMay died in October 1990 General Chain invited me to fly to Colorado SPrings with him and other SAC generals for LeMay's funeral and burial at the Air Force Academy. I was the only civilian in the Headquarters SAC delegation to the funeral and it was quite an honor to ride in the third car behind the hearse in the cortege from Peterson AFB to the Academy. Before the funeral service we had lunch with the USAF delegation from Washington, which also included one civilian 'tho he was an Air Force official.
To this day I cherish an award Offutt Air Force Base gave me when I retired from the Chamber of Commerce post and the scrapbooks of photos the SAC photographer took of me on General Chain's trips and at formal dinners the SAC CINC hosted. It was exciting to have a 45-minute chat with Astronaut Neil Armstrong one afternoon. And to have a drink with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Colin Powell the day after Iraq invaded Kuwait knowing how much he must have had on his mind that night.
When I was with the Chamber, Offutt's 3902nd Air Base Wing nominated me for invitations to attend a VIP week at Air War College and a VIP week at Navy War College. Both were quite an experience.
My time as Director of the SAC Museum was fascinating and I shall forever be grateful to Governor Bob Kerrey for hiring me (and will always dislike Governor Kay Orr for firing me, although it took Atilla the Hen three years and eight months of her four year term to get it done). I met so many people from business, television and movies and government. Through all the Cold War years I never imagined that I would host a delegation of Soviets from Pravda and Tass and receive a gift of many Soviet pins and host the visiting chief of staff of the Peoples Republic of China air force and receive as a gift a Red Star tie clasp. The world certainly changed during our lifetime.
One afternoon in Salvong, California, Roman Hruska, who was a United States Senator from Nebraska for many years, and I were having a cold beer break while shopping. He was telling our Air Force driver and Air Force escort about my long career in Bellevue and finally asked me what activity or achievement had given me the most pride or satisfaction.
I must say it occurred while I handled public relations for the Bellevue Public Schools.
There were about 2,400 to 2,500 kids jammed into Bellevue Senior High School and shifts ran from 7 a.m. to early evening. A family with, for example, a freshman and senior in school found them in different shifts.
The School Board decided we needed a second high school and it was decided there would be a School Facilities Study done by citizens divided into three committees to study year-round school in one high school, continued split shifts in one high school and adding a second high school. Harold Bonness was named chairman. The Assistant Superintendent in charge of the study delegated me the task of staffing the study. Our goal, of course, was to see that the citizens, once the three committees merged to make a recommendation, recommended to the School Board a bond issue to build a second high school (and other school faciities in the district). The bond issue was recommended and the School Board called a special election in the fall of 1974 -- right in the middle of a recession. The campaign was for $15 million in bonds, at that time one of the largest school bond issues ever put before voters in Nebraska. It was not going to be an easy task. And the morning after the School Board called for the election I was called into the Assistant Superintendent's office and informed that I had been chosen to be in charge of the campaign although Dr. Jim Boyd, longtime Bellevue veterinarian, would be the chairman and public face of the campaign. Over Labor Day weekend I wrote all of the materials to be used in the campaign and then took the pictures and wrote the script for a slide show to be presented to any group in Bellevue who would listen to our campaign. I lost count of the number of times I presented that show during the campaign. There was strong opposition to the bond issue from people who didn't want the additional property taxes and supporters of Coach Bill James who didn't want his football talent pool divided into two teams.
It was exciting when the votes were counted and Bellevue started preparing for a second high school. Even before the election, hoping the bonds would pass, Lloyd "Bud" Boilesen, who was our high school principal from 1957 on, was selected to be principal of the second high school. I enjoyed working with him as he determined what he wanted at West High so he could start advising architects after the election.
While I will always be part of the Class of '59 from the old high school downtown, now Mission Middle School, and have a space in my heart for the Chieftains tradition kept alive at what is now Bellevue ...Expand for more
East High School, I have a special attachment to and affection for Bellevue West High School. I feel like I helped build it and since it opened have cheered the West High Thunderbirds.
Coach James and his most vocal supporters missed the point in their opposition to the second high school. He never enjoyed the success he'd had with one high school, when he could pick and choose among the talent pool, but twice as many Bellevue kids get to play on football teams. That's what it was all about. Twice as many kids get to play in the band, to perform in school plays and musicals, to sing in choir and concert show groups, to debate, to be cheerleaders,to be on basketball, volleyball, baseball, track, wrestling, cross country and soccer teams, etc., to be in Air Force Juniot ROTC and so on.
That's the thing that gives me the most pride when I think about my 37-year career in Bellevue jobs. And one of the greatest honors I received was to be honored by Bellevue's teachers when I left the school district post to become CEO of the Bellevue Chamber of Commerce.
I remained active in politics for many years, getting to know such Republican luminaries as Barry Goldwater and Dick Nixon, as well as Nebraska governors and U. S. senators. After Nixon was elected I served several years on a public relations advisory group to a member of his Cabinet. Except for me, all the advisory members were top executives of major public relations firms and we held most of our meetings in New York, where the chairman's firm was headquartered. While it did not seem important at the time, one of the members was the father of Michael Crichton who became a best-selling author after writing "Jurassic Park".
Because I am still a committed Goldwater Republican there wasn't a Republican I could support in 2008. I supported Hillary Clinton for President until she ended her quest. I then supported Barack Obama. I was so impressed by him I did something I had done only for Dick Nixon and Barry Goldwater -- donated money to his campaign (three different times).
I retired in 1998 at the age of 57, sold my Bellevue home and bought a house in a small rural Kansas town where I was born and where my grandparents lived until their deaths. My house is three doors down from the house where my mother grew up and from my front yard I can see across corn fields to the property where I was born.
I am active in the local United Methodist Church, serving on the church board. And I'm on the evangelism committee for the two churches in our Methodist parish. I was elected to our City Council three times but resigned in 2007 to become City Clerk after our city clerk was arrested for embezzling $150K. I wasn't sure about taking on a fulltime job at age 66 but at 68 I still enjoy it and would like to hold the job at least until I am 70, if my health remains good. For many years I was addicted to new cars and traded every fall but as I neared retirement I kept the last Cadillac I bought. It finally wore out several years ago and was hauled to a salvage yard. My second car and then my only car was an Oldsmobile my brother bought from an elderly lady who wanted to get a Cadillac. With my city job supplementing my Social Security I was able to satisfy my one main vice and I am again driving a luxury car -- a very nice cloud white Lincoln Town Car.
I would not have been so dependent on Social Security had I not been ill for about a year before I finally retired. During that year it was necessary to cash in all my CDs and sell all my stocks to pay bills.
My interests are gardening, tending to two pups I adopted last year, Nebraska Big Red football (I still go to most home games), and writing. I have several novels in the works, a couple that I've dabbled on now and then for ten years. One that I've almost finished has the interest of a major publisher but no commitment. For a number of years I've written an editorial column for the on-line NebraskaStatePaper and have enjoyed the response my opinions have sparked from all over the country and in some foreign nations. When I investigated the incident in Norman, Oklahoma, when a potential suicide bomber's bomb, wrapped around his waist, exploded just outside the stadium during a Kansas State - Oklahoma football game, I felt good when a New York City business executive said he hadn't read or heard a word about the bombing until he read my two columns on the subject.
I never married -- guess I got too set in my ways. I was engaged in the late 70s to a beautiful girl I met in Miami (and I mean beautifu; never could understood what she saw in me). When we met in 1978 I was 37 and she was 22, which worried me. But it was her domineering parents (you'll work for me, Jack; this is the house we're buying for you and Pam; don't worry about being up in Nebraska, Pam and I will decorate the house, plan the wedding, etc., etc.) that convinced me to fly back to Nebraska on the eve of our engagement announcement party during the 1980 holiday season. Our son was born in the spring of 1981 and adopted by the man she married in 1982. I was never allowed to see him and have no idea where he is now. I made many efforts to find him but Eric Crouch's brother convinced me to stop dwelling on that situation and move on with my life.
I had looked forward to our 50th class reunion in 2009. I skipped the previous five-year reunions because I did not want such overt confirmations that five more calendars had been tossed away and I was getting old. Nor did I want to watch former classmates grow old. But a young friend convinced me that age is just a mental thing -- you're still young if you have the right attitude -- and I wanted to be with the Class of '59 again. Unfortunately, in route to Bellevue by car I became ill and turned around and returned home, not wanting to take a chance of becoming very ill in Bellevue with a two-hour trip back to Kansas facing me.
I really regretted missing the reunion. I also deeply regret losing touch with a lot of people who didn't graduate from Bellevue High School but who were good and cherished friends in junior high and earlier in high school, before their dads were transferred to other Air Force bases.
One in particular that I've tried to locate is Ray Sage, who left between our junior and senior years. His dad, John R. Sage, was a USAF major when they left Bellevue for an assignment at Barksdale AFB in Bossier City, Louisiana. I picked him up at his Louisiana college one spring and spent some time with him and his family at Barksdale. But after a few years, as often happens, he had friends I didn't know and activities that didn't interest me and I had friends he didn't know and activities that didn't interest him and there was soon little to write about in letters and the connection ended.
If anyone who also knew Ray might know where he is, let me know. I never thought about it when we ran around, but I'm guessing he might be John Ray Sage Jr. (since his dad was John R.). Before I see the end of my days I would like to spend some time with him.
I would also like to locate Mike Blacker and Charles "Happy" Bulger,who left midway through high school, as well as guys like Fred Held, Jerry DePoyster, Bill "Pick" Pickavance, et al, who were at Bellevue High a few years after we left.
I don't remember him, but it may interest some of you to know that actor Robert Hays graduated from BHS a few years after we left. And a kid who made quite a name for himself wrestling at BHS and in the Golden Gloves in Omaha, and whom I covered when I was with the Bellevue Press, is Jim Webb. He was Secretary of the Navy for President Ronald Reagan, became a Democrat because of his opposition to George W. Bush's blunder in Iraq and is now a United States Senator from Virginia. He is also a best-selling author.
A lot of Bellevue High grads have done very well -- one whose name I can't recall has been chairman of the American Red Cross. Pick Pickavance became a two-star Navy admiral. A number have become Air Force generals, including Brett Dula, who had a stint as acting Commander of Air Combat Command and retired with three stars, and Dick Newton III, who currently has three stars and who some people in Washington think has a chance to be the first Bellevue grad to get four stars.
Cathy Williams (who worked after school and summers in my school district office when she was 15 years old) maintains a good list of what Bellevue grads have accomplished, especially in military careers. She can be reached at the Bellevue Public School offices in the Bellevue-Offutt Welcome Center on Highway 370.
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