BREA : Last Picture Show for Retiring Principal

Mariposa Elementary School students have found a unique way to bid farewell to their principal, Howard Bryden, who is retiring June 22.

Their messages are painted on 5-by-7-foot posters in the school cafeteria and arranged so they form a giant mural, a picture show of Bryden’s life inside and outside the school campus.

Bryden is retiring after 26 years as principal, and the students are showing their appreciation through artworks done over a two-week period in March.

“I’m touched,” Bryden said. “We do this mural every month. The theme for March was supposed to be about California. Instead, the students did one for my retirement.”

The posters tell a story. In one done by third-graders, Bryden is dressed in a yellow raincoat, holding a stop sign, and directing traffic on a rainy day. Above the picture are the words, “Stop, In The Name Of Love.”

Second-grade students show him aboard a train, depicting the time that Bryden was train conductor in Disneyland from 1958 to 1964. The poster says: “Mr. Bryden Is The Engineer Of Our Education.”

It’s not a coincidence that the students are paying tribute to Bryden through art. Bryden said he is delighted that he is leaving behind a legacy of art and music. As principal, he stressed music and art appreciation. Flag Days often featured musical numbers from the movies or Broadway plays, he said.

For the school’s Flag Day celebration to be held Friday--Bryden’s last one as principal--students will perform several musical numbers, including “Singing in the Rain,” featuring first-graders carrying tiny, colorful parasols.

His six-year stint as a train conductor in Disneyland has made him a believer of the Walt Disney philosophy, which he carried over into his teaching and management style, Bryden said.

“Walt Disney said: ‘Pay attention to details. Keep it clean and give a good show.’ I believed that,” Bryden said.

Among his prized possessions is an autographed print of a Pinocchio cartoon, a gift from Michael D. Eisner, chief executive officer of the Walt Disney Co. It was presented to him during the school’s open house in May.

Bryden, 62, was born in Albuquerque, N.M. He went to Vallejo Junior College and later joined the Air Force as an aerial photographer. After his discharge in 1952, he went to what was then known as San Jose State College and graduated in 1956 with a bachelor’s degree in education. He has a master’s degree in education from Cal State Long Beach.

Bryden taught fifth grade at Arovista Elementary School from 1956 to 1959 and later taught at Brea Junior High School. In 1964, he was named vice principal for both Arovista and Brea Junior High. Three years later, he was appointed Mariposa principal.

One of Bryden’s teachers at Mariposa is Michelle Gunn, who was one of his fifth-grade students at Arovista in 1956.

“I was in the first class he taught,” said Gunn, now a fourth-grade teacher. “He’s still Mr. Bryden to me. People call him Howard, but I always consider him my superior.”

Bryden’s wife, Anita, died in 1988. He has four grown children. He plans to stay in Brea because “this is the best community (in which) anyone could ever live.

“I’m a fortunate man to have done what I have done,” Bryden said. “I don’t know of any other job with the same personal satisfaction as being a teacher or a principal.”

Mariposa students seem to agree. One poster in the cafeteria says: “Mr. Bryden--A Teacher and a Friend.”