Buddy Cudd and YHS:

Together from the very beginning,

but now it is time to sort-of retire

by Earlene Ward

Yosemite High School District

When Buddy Cudd started to work for the Yosemite Joint Union High School District, there were just 95 acres of brush where Yosemite High School is now located. As he retires after just over 26 years, he leaves a campus that is once again under construction but houses about 1,200 students and a staff of around 150 people.

Mr. Cudd started work for the brand new district May 1, 1975; he retired September 1 as the employee with the most time in the district.

He was hired as maintenance supervisor to be the “eyes of the district” during the original construction. This was a management position and he has remained a member of the management team throughout the years.

Photo on left: Buddy Cudd, part of the original staff when Yosemite High School was built, served as supervisor of Building and Grounds. He checks a building then under construction in August 1976.

MOT man on campus:

In addition to overseeing the construction project, Mr. Cudd developed the Transportation Department, established routes, secured buses and hired a lead person. In time, he was paid to be in charge of transportation and his title was changed to supervisor of Maintenance, Operations and Transportation (MOT). Later he became director of MOT, the title he still holds.

Although he officially retired September 1, he will return two days a week as a consultant for MOT and for the construction project that is currently underway with funds from the bond that was passed in 1998.

For the first construction project, the district hired a general contractor who dealt with all of the subcontractors. Mr. Cudd was involved in the project on a daily basis, keeping track of what was happening.

During the current construction project, the district hired a construction manager but each subcontractor works as a prime contractor. “Therefore,” Mr. Cudd explains, “we deal more directly with the sub-contractors than we did the first time.”

While he notes that this has saved the district a lot of money, it has taken more time and energy on his part.

Mr. Cudd worked several months on the new site before construction started in 1975. He kept busy clearing brush and preparing for construction. After construction started, he was responsible for getting topsoil on the banks and preparing the site for winter.

The start-up team:

Along with these duties, as a member of the management team, Mr. Cudd spent time out in the community explaining the school’s goals and vision. He was a part of the committee that hired all of the first teachers for Yosemite High School and he was part of the team that visited students’ homes to talk to them and their parents about the new school.

A house was built on the YHS campus as the residence for a person who would look after the facility; Mr. Cudd and his family lived there for two years. He recalls those early years as being extremely busy.

A typical day would start at 6 a.m. and might not end until 10 p.m. “I was on campus nights and weekends too,” he recalls. There was a lot of stress on everyone in those early years; everyone was asked to do more than they could really do. “The staff who stuck it out have been super,” he said.

Mr. Cudd came to the YJUHSD after working for Oakhurst Elementary School and Sierra High School. He started work in August 1964 as a custodian and bus driver for OES at the age of 23. He was very grateful for that job. “It was a great find in a job. I was really fortunate, it was hard to make a living up here then.”

Two years later, he went to work for Sierra High School because “the pay was better and I liked the high school-type activities.” He says his boss at SHS gave him the opportunity to do many different tasks, preparing him well for the position that later opened at YJUHSD.

Behind the wheel:

He recalls driving the school bus to Sierra High as one of his most fun jobs. “I enjoyed seeing the kids,” he says, noting that in his position at YJUHSD he doesn’t have the opportunity to interact much with the students.

Mr. Cudd says he was a no-nonsense bus driver and the students realized that. “We developed a lot of rapport and respect,” he said, “I was a father-figure to some of them.” All this despite the fact that he was only seven or eight years older than some of the students.

Today, he often sees the children of students who rode the bus in the late ’60s and early ’70s and he sees the former students as well. “I enjoy seeing the kids I hauled to school,” he says.

The trip between Oakhurst and Sierra High School in Eastern Fresno County was a familiar one to Mr. Cudd. As a graduate of SHS, he had made that trip as a student for four years. He says the students never minded the trip, looking on it as a social time.

Mr. Cudd moved to Oakhurst from Madera in 1956 when he was 14 years old. The family lived in the mill yard by Sierra Sky Ranch and his father worked in the mill. After three years, his parents moved from Oakhurst but he stayed and lived with friends so he could graduate from SHS. He was student body president and active in all of the sports.

It’s been a ‘neat career’

There have been good times and not-so-good times through the history of YHS. Mr. Cudd says the most positive thing for him was being hired for the job. He recalls that there were 50 applicants and he was the “only real home-town person.”

“It has been a really neat career for me,” he says, adding that he enjoys “the people and moral values the people at schools have. I enjoy the atmosphere.”

He has also enjoyed the support he has received from all of the members of the school board and the superintendents through the years.

“Each superintendent brought a little change, but my job has stayed the same,” he says. “The boards have always been very supportive of me, they’ve always made me feel comfortable in my job.”

He is proud of his work in the area of energy conservation in the district. “This is really the only way I’ve had to save the school money,” he says. He enjoys working on energy issues so much that he will work part-time as an energy consultant in private industry when he retires.

The most difficult time in the history of the school, in Mr. Cudd’s opinion, was the recall of three school board members in 1988.

“The recall took a toll on all of us,” he remembers, “but we survived it. The (new) board had the integrity to see that we were doing a good job and they supported us.”

He goes on to say that he has always appreciated the school board members. “It’s a thankless job; they take a lot of guff when they are only trying to be helpful.”

Bursting with pride

He is also most appreciative the people he has worked with through the years. “My success and the success of the daily running of the school is the good workers,” he says. “People with good attitudes, people with knowledge of their work, people who make good decisions on a daily basis and people who are always willing to do what is asked of them.”

Mr. Cudd has great pride in Yosemite High School and the part he has had in building it.

“The school has improved a lot in curriculum, in the offerings and the push to excellence,” he says. “Money from the state has let us have better equipment, more books, more things to interest the kids. YHS has gone from a mediocre school to one that is on top - the best. In my mind, we’ve always had the best clientele to work with — we have the best kids and supportive parents.”

The main thing Mr. Cudd would like to see before he leaves his position at YJUHSD as a consultant is the construction of a swimming pool.

“We’ve been very responsible stewards of this school,” he says. “We’ve made good decisions about classrooms, curriculum and such. So now, my big push is for a swimming pool. People of all ages could use it. It’s a frill the community deserves after passing the bond.”

He would also like to see all of the original buildings remodeled (all but two have been and they are scheduled for work in the near future), the athletic fields finished and new roofs on all of the original buildings.

Mr. Cudd has been instrumental in virtually all of the construction of the YHS plant; his expertise and knowledge will be missed, notes District Superintendent Bill McCabe. “Buddy has forgotten more about this plant than any of the rest of us will ever know,” Mr. McCabe says.

In addition to working as a consultant for the school district and as an energy consultant for private industry, Mr. Cudd says he has a lot of projects to do around his home.

Mr. Cudd and his wife, Linda, who is a sixth grade teacher at Oak Creek Intermediate School, have three adult children, all YHS graduates: Jerry, Randy and Stacey.

Mrs. Cudd, who moved to Oakhurst in 1952 with her parents, is also a SHS graduate.

The Cudds also have one grandchild, 2-year-old Sophie. The thought of her brings a bright smile to Mr. Cudd’s face. “You talk about fun, now,” he says. “I guess I’m a typical grandparent ... she remembers names I can’t remember. You just wonder how they come up with some of the things they say.”

Mr. Cudd will be honored later in the year when the district celebrates its 25th anniversary. Yosemite High School opened its doors September 9, 1976.

Photo on left: Buddy Cudd pauses at the new Yosemite High School Cafeteria during construction a few days ago. An official of the high school district since Yosemite High was built, Mr. Cudd has seen a lot of changes on the campus over the years.