In Memory

Sandra Beebe (Beebe-Thomspon) VIEW PROFILE

Thank you Robert Hoff for posting.   Many will fondly remember Sandra Beebe. 

Deceased Classmate: Teacher
Obituary Link: https://obits.ocregister.com/obituaries/orangecounty/obituary.aspx?n=sandra-e-beebe-thompson&pid=187604608
Date Of Birth: 1934
Date Deceased: 12-10-2017
Age at Death: 82

Beebe-Thompson, Sandra E. of Long Beach, passed peacefully in her sleep at home on Sunday, December 10, 2017. Miss Beebe, revered English teacher of several generations of Garden Grove High School students. Renowned artist, Life Member of the American Watercolor Society. Born November 10, 1934 at March Field, CA, daughter of (then 1st Lt. USAAC) Eugene Beebe and Margaret Fox Beebe. A lifelong resident of Long Beach, Sandra came here with her mother in 1943 when her father (by then Col., USAAF and later Brig. Gen., USAF) led his command, the 308th Bomber Group, to war in Central China. In 1947, her father retired from the Air Force and her parents bought the house on Mira Mar in Belmont Heights. She attended St. Matthew's Grammar School, starting 4th grade in the fall of 1943 and graduated from St. Anthony's High School in 1952. She graduated from UCLA with a BA in English in January 1956, where she was a member of the sorority, Kappa Kappa Gamma, and then received an MA in English and a teaching credential from Cal State, Long Beach in 1957. She started her 37-year teaching career at Garden Grove High School that fall. Sandra began serious painting in the early 1970s and, by the early 1980s, she had become a well-known watercolor artist exhibiting her paintings at major art shows across the country. She had the pleasure of working with and learning from Frank Webb, Robert Wood, and Gerald Bromer among other prominent water-colorists. In 1994, she was inducted into the American Watercolor Society at its annual exhibition in New York. In the summer of 1994, she married Donald Thompson, an old friend whom she'd known since they first met as young children at St. Matthew's. She moved with him to Marina Pacifica and then, in 2001 and after her mother had died, she and he moved back into the Mira Mar house. Funeral service will be held at 11 AM, Thursday, 12/28/17, at St. Bartholomew's Catholic Church, Long Beach, CA, followed by interment at All Souls Cemetery. Published in Orange County Register from Dec. 22 to Dec. 24, 2017

 

https://obits.ocregister.com/obituaries/orangecounty/obituary.aspx?n=sandra-e-beebe-thompson&pid=187604608



 
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06/17/20 01:59 PM #1    

Keith Hardeman (1973)

Sandra Beebe was the best of the best. She was truly one of my very favorite teachers at any level of my education. She was not just one of the brightest and most articulate people I’ve known, she cared deeply for her profession and for being the best teacher she could possibly be. She definitely succeeded.

As a college teacher of 40 years, I know how thankless this drastically underpaid profession can be. And I know how difficult it is to have students in the classroom who just don’t seem to care much. But how she loved what she did! I was an underachieving 15-year-old when I entered her American Lit class in the fall 1971 semester. She pushed me. She pushed me harder than any other teacher I had. She taught me that “good enough” should never be good enough. And in the process, she taught me not only how to think, but how to think critically.

She made me want to work harder. I’ll never forget the paper on ratiocination (which obviously had to involve a lot of critical thinking) I wrote for her class. That I earned an A on it – from Miss Beebe, no less – was likely the highest compliment I ever received in high school.

Whatever successes I’ve accumulated in my four decades in the classroom, I owe many of them to Miss Beebe.

RIP.


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