[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 57 (Tuesday, May 6, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H2245-H2246]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  2145
                       HONORING DR. ROBERT LASLEY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Jenkins). Under a previous order of the

[[Page H2246]]

House, the gentleman from California [Mr. Rogan] is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. ROGAN. Mr. Speaker, it is a great privilege for me to join my 
Republican colleagues tonight in recognizing Teacher Appreciation Week, 
and in doing so I want to recognize and pay special tribute to a 
teacher who does not live in my district and is one who in fact never 
even voted for me, but one that I love very deeply and one who has had 
a profound impact on my life. His name is Dr. Robert Lasley.
  Let me tell my colleagues a little about Bob. First, he was born in 
Doud, IA, in 1930. His family moved to California in 1934 after his 
father's business failed as a result of the Depression. He had his 
first job when he was 4 years old picking prunes on a farm. He 
laughingly refers to his family as fruit tramps. They settled in Red 
Bluff, where he attended schools.
  He first served his country in the United States Air Force when he 
enlisted in 1950. Then he transferred to the United States Army. He 
attended Officer Candidate School. He was commissioned as a second 
lieutenant in 1952. He served until 1956 and left the military as a 
first lieutenant with a wife and 3 children.
  He entered City College of San Francisco in 1956 and became the first 
member of his family to attend college. He received his Bachelor's 
Degree in English in 1961, his Master's Degree in educational 
administration in 1971 and a Doctor of Education in 1983.
  He married his present wife, Jerry, while he was teaching at Ben 
Franklin Junior High School in Daly City, CA. Between the two of them, 
they have 6 children. Now, when Bob was growing up, he was the first 
member of his family to attend college. Each one of Bob and Jerry's 6 
children have college degrees, three of them have Master's Degrees.
  Bob has taught at San Diego State University and Imperial Valley 
Campus. He served as a department chair in drama at San Francisco 
Community College and worked as a superintendent in the Hopeville, 
Gustine and Lamont School Districts.
  But I want to go back to one of those assignments that I mentioned 
earlier, his tenure at Ben Franklin Junior High in Daly City, CA.
  Mr. Speaker, in 1970 and 1971 I was an 8th grade student at Ben 
Franklin Junior High, and I had a rudimentary interest in government 
and politics and we had one elective class that we were allowed to 
pick, so I chose a class called Advanced Government, taught by Dr. 
Robert Lasley. There were three other boys in that class who were good 
friends of mine, one named Roger Mahan, one Clint Bolick, and one named 
Dan Swanson. It was an incredible class. For an entire year we had a 
model United States Congress, where we represented individual States.
  Bob Lasley taught us parliamentary law. He taught us procedure, he 
taught us how to debate, he taught us how to introduce bills. Mr. 
Speaker, I still have my class notes from that 8th grade class, and the 
parliamentary law he taught me a quarter century ago still serves me 
well in this Chamber.
  That class not only taught me an appreciation and a love for the 
institutions of government and particularly a reverence for this 
Chamber; it taught me how to be a better citizen and it taught every 
other child that went through that class how to be better Americans.
  Bob did a good job in that class. Dan Swanson today is a senior 
partner at a prominent law firm in Los Angeles. Roger Mahan works for 
the United States House of Representatives serving as a consultant on 
the Committee on the Budget. Clint Bolick is one of the premier 
constitutional scholars and lawyers in the United States and is right 
down the street on Pennsylvania Avenue as the cofounder of the 
Institute for Justice.
  I am the failure of the group, I am the one who went into politics 
and have the privilege of serving today in the Congress of the United 
States.
  Those three friends and myself, if Bob were here, would offer him our 
heartfelt thanks for a life of public service and for what he has done 
for us. And if Bob is listening tonight, I want him to know that there 
are a generation of young people who have grown up under his tutoring 
and under his leadership. He has been a great teacher. He has been a 
role model. He has been truly an educator. He is a patriot and a very 
fine American, and so I salute him during Teacher Appreciation Week and 
I thank him from the bottom of my heart for all he has done for our 
community and for our country.

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