Ms. Cindy Mauss

By Michael Gillespie

Ms. Cindy Mauss, Food and Beverage Director at Judge, will be retiring this year after being on the staff for 37 years, starting here in 1984.

mauss and dixon.jpg — Dan Dixon (Ms. Mauss’ brother, came out of retirement to help his sister in the JM cafeteria.

“When I started, Father McNamara hired me. The school was on a government program at the time, and he had me change the whole thing.

“My work has been fun,” Ms. Mauss said. “I have loved working with the faculty, staff, and all the different principals. And I love it when the freshmen come in. They're so immature and they are afraid, and I love to see the seniors because they turn into these polite young people. And I've just always really admired the way the Judge faculty are with their students and how many different parts of their life the students learn while here.”

“I like to see all the accolades that the students get. It's always just been about the students. I've been through a lot of different faculty and staff, and it's just been great. The dedication I've seen is amazing.”

And what are Ms. Mauss’ plans for the future?

“I'm going to be traveling with my kids,” she said. “And I'm a gardener. I love the garden. I have my husband and my mom to spend time with. We all live in one home, and it's nice. I don't have to have plans, I’m a ‘spur of the moment’ person. If anybody was down for doing something. I'll be there.”

Her advice for students: “Be nice to the cafeteria people because you don't know what goes behind everything it takes to have lunch for you.”

Mr. Art Holder

By Sam Klemesrud

This year, we say goodbye to Mr. Arthur Holder, a teacher at Judge who has been here for 27 years. During his time here he has taught German, French, AP Human Geography, Physical Geography, Mock Trial, and even English for international students.

Mr. Holder talks about his teaching in a Back to School video from September 2020.

He also was part of a German exchange program, where the school would host German students for one year and then go to Germany and learn there for the next year.

“The best memory I have was for 20 years I had an exchange program with a school in Germany,” Mr. Holder said. “We would host students from Germany one year, and then the next year I would take my students to Germany. They’d stay with German families and then we’d travel. So that's one case I really well remember. Also, for three or four years, I worked with the mock trial team with Ms. Pugh, and I really enjoyed it.”

Mr. Holder says he will miss the staff and students of this school, because they have always been so welcoming during all the time he has taught here.

“One of the things I really liked about Judge from the very first day I got here was how welcoming the faculty was. That's kept up over the years, even with people coming and going. And I’ll miss the interaction with students.”

His advice for future Bulldogs is to do your homework, and to never be afraid to reach out to teachers for help.

“The biggest piece of advice I have for students is to do your homework. Don't get behind. The next thing is whenever you're having trouble, ask your teacher. I think there's not a teacher here who won't help you if you ask for it. But you have to ask sometimes. Take advantage of your teachers, in the best sense of that word.”

For the next couple of years Mr. Holder plans to travel a lot, and also read a lot more books.

“This is the longest I've been in any job I've ever had,” he said about his time at Judge, “and I really enjoyed it.”

Mr. Tim Carr

by Nickolas Maez

Though Mr. Carr has only been with us for a year, it isn’t Mr. Carr’s first rodeo here at Judge Memorial. He has been here as a student, and as our dean of students twice. This year marks the end of Mr. Carr’s time at Judge. I had the opportunity to interview him and share a lot of facts about him.

Mr. Carr graduated from Judge, been a faculty member and Dean of Students twice.

Nick: So you’re leaving Judge this year right?

Mr. Carr: I am

N: How long have you worked here?

Mr. C: So, I worked here from 1977 until 1988. And then I went off and I was the principal of St. Joseph's Elementary School. I was a principal at Cosgriff. Then I was the executive director at the Guadalupe schools. And then I worked at Westminster College for 20 years.

N: Very nice. What’d you do at Westminster?

Mr. C: I taught education courses, psych courses, and ran a master's program in teaching and retired from there a year ago. And Coach Cordova called me. He was one of my students when I was here before. And he said, “Tim, you should come back, your old job’s open. So I came back and so it's just been one year, this time around.

N: That’s pretty neat. So what exactly do you do, what’s it like being the Dean of Students at Judge?

Mr. C: It's way different now than it was back when I first started. When I first started we didn't have computers, didn't have cameras. We had a monster schedule. So, at any point in time during the school day over half the kids could be on free time and be anywhere in the building, I mean it was a hard job back then. It's a lot easier now, but I'm in charge of attendance and discipline, and that sort of thing.

N: Very nice. What are you gonna miss most about this place?

Mr. C: I enjoy people. I enjoy getting to know people. I enjoy working with people so, what I'm going to miss the most is the people.

N: Do you have any favorite memories from here?

Mr. C: Well, so I was a student here too. Graduated, way back when, so Judge has been a huge part of my life a lot of years. I've got great memories as a student, I've got great memories from the first time I did this, and from this year. I think the greatest memories are students who are here, whose parents were students of mine, way back. So it's kind of been interesting to see people who were knuckleheads in the ‘80s turn out to be pretty decent parents

N: Any particular anecdotes you'd like to share?

Mr. C: Coach Cordova was a student of mine. and let's just say, he hasn't always been as wonderful as he is now. In fact his dad was my high school football coach. His dad did a lot of stuff for me. So when Cordova was a student here, it gave me an opportunity to give back to my coach. And I'll leave it at that. It has been fun, though. I'm going to really miss that because I've enjoyed working with him every day.

N: Do you have any future plans after this?

Mr. C: Ya know, I love the Sharing Place, I'm gonna spend a little more time there helping with some things. And I also used to run a nonprofit group called Somos.

N: What did that do?

Mr. C: It was a branch of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. We raised money and had scholarships for Hispanic students. We used to give $400,000 a year away, so it was pretty significant. All the kids that we worked with were great academically, but they also were coming from poverty so they didn't have a lot of money. So that was really, that was good stuff. I think I was making up for some of the screwy things I did as a kid.

N: I’m glad you can help in such a large capacity. Any other projects or hobbies you’d like to take up?

Mr. C: Yeah I'm writing a book, my second book. I wrote a book on values development way back. And I'm going to do one now, this kind of just an anecdotal book, and I think I'm gonna write some mysteries.

N: Got any particular ideas for a mystery in mind?

Mr. C: I do, but I'm not going to tell you because you'll steal them.

N: Oh I don't know about that.

Mr. C: Before I worked here the last time, way in the ‘70s, I worked for the FBI. My undergrad degree is criminology and criminalistics integration so, I've always been kind of fascinated with that.

N: Got any wise words for future Bulldogs?

Mr. C: I think sometimes as we're going through life, we let life do us instead of us doing life. We kind of take what comes at us, instead of being proactive and making things happen. We just kind of sit back and react as things come at us. I'd say take charge of life, set some goals, and understand that that's really where you're trying to get. It just doesn't happen by accident. Just know what you want to do and work hard. Even if you don't know what you want to do, work hard. It puts you in a position to be able to do a lot of different things. I've done a lot of different things in my life. I refereed high school and college basketball for 35 years. I've written some articles in different national magazines. I was just really fortunate with what I did. I got to travel a lot with a lot of different committees. So don't be afraid to try new things, different things. Live life to the fullest because you only go around once. Gotta do it well while you're young enough to enjoy it whether physically or mentally, but don't be afraid to do things.

N: Very nice. Do you have anything else you want to share?

Mr. C: I just really really enjoyed the year. The senior class was just awesome. I think they really, really, accepted me and made the year enjoyable. It was a tough year with COVID, and I'm still trying to figure out who people are because you wouldn't believe how many people look the same from the forehead up.

Though Mr. Carr has only been back for a short while, he has helped us maintain our in-person school with Covid protocols that have protected us fairly well. A jovial man that has good banter with students. We wish Mr. Carr a good time ahead. May he have a good retirement and continue to be the good man we know him to be.