High Schools

Fresh out of college and a long way from Dayton, Frank Gehres was in one of his very first days of teaching sixth grade at the St. Francis of Assisi School just outside the Jicarilla Apache Nation — the massive Indian reservation located in the mountains and rugged mesas of northern New Mexico — when he heard a couple of kids utter an unfamiliar word.

From their expression, the Chaminade Julienne grad and former Greater Dayton Rowing Association competitor knew the term was directed at him, and it didn't seem at all complimentary.

With a little bit of probing, he found out it was derogatory Apache slang for a white person.

Kids of all backgrounds, races and nationalities unthinkingly stereotype each other back here as well, but Frank quickly told his students that in his classroom everybody would treat each other better than that.

And these days Gehres has a new name. One that elicits respect, affection and, oftentimes, a bit of bemusement.

He's "Mr. G."

This has happened not because of what the 22-year-old Gehres said that first school day, but because of what he has done since:

• He gives the students a full day in the classroom — teaching sixth-grade religion, spelling, math, reading, social studies, science, health, physical education and music — then during lunch break he reads stories to the littlest of the St. Francis kids. After school he coaches the third- to sixth-grade basketball team. And he does it all for a room, two meals and a stipend of less than $10 a day.

• He's taken part in the Apache Nation's ceremonially ornate, physically exhausting relay run at the Go-Jii-Ya harvest feast.

• And then there was the school's annual children's Christmas pageant he starred in just before returning to Dayton this week for the holidays:

"I got nominated to represent the teachers," Gehres said with a laugh as he sat in the Pacchia Cafe in the Oregon District. "So I come out with some really high shorts on, suspenders, my cap on backwards and do the song, "I'm Gettin' Nuttin' for Christmas."

He played it to the hilt, carrying a little bat on his shoulder — "I broke my bat on Johnny's head ... I hid a frog in sister's bed" — duck-walking across the stage and shaking his butt at the howling kids.

Once again Mr. G. had delivered and, as everybody there is beginning to understand, the guy from Dayton might be "gettin' nuttin'," but he sure has given something to the Apache and Hispanic kids at St. Francis.

It's the ultimate Christmas gift.

This school year, Frank Gehres is giving himself to his fellow man.

Endurance race

After going through Corpus Christi Elementary and CJ, Gehres went to Mercyhurst College in Erie, Pa., and spent a semester studying in the Czech Republic at Prague's Charles University, one of the oldest schools in Europe.

The son of Dayton Municipal Judge Dan Gehres and his wife, Virginia, he eventually plans to go to law school, but first decided on a path a little different than most new college grads.

"Got that good old Catholic guilt going from my days at Corpus and CJ," he said with a grin. "Now I don't want to sound corny and say I was just looking to help people, but I do know I've been very blessed in my life.

"I went to good schools here in Dayton, went to college and got to go to Europe. I've had a car to drive. I've never been hungry or cold or really in need. It gets to a point where you can just keep going along like that or you can look beyond yourself and realize there is something more than just you in any situation."

"I decided I wanted to do some kind of service, but what? Single mothers in Chicago? There's nothing I can tell them."

He remembered Judge A.J. Wagner's daughter had worked at St. Francis, made an inquiry and began Aug. 1.

The Franciscan-founded school of some 75 students is in the tiny, high-altitude outpost of Lumberton, N.M., three miles from the Jicarilla Apache Nation, where some 2,750 people live, most in the reservation town of Dulce.

It's a far cry from the Five Oaks neighborhood where Gehres grew up.

The other day he talked about everything from the magnificent mountains to hearing the elk "trumpet" at night and then seeing them come down to the nearby fields to graze in the mornings. He recounted visits to nearby ghost towns, his love of Indian fry bread and, most of all, he talked about the people, especially the kids with whom he's stressing the importance of an education, a concept not readily embraced by many youth on the reservation.

He's been invited into various people's homes for weekly dinners. One family, especially, has taken him under its wing and made him a part of their Thanksgiving celebration.

And, most remarkably, Gehres was allowed to take part in harvest festival's fabled foot race — which is accompanied by a pow wow and rodeo — even though he's not a tribal member.

"You go to the kiva first," Gehres said. "They made a circle of scrub oaks branches, and the elders were inside there waiting for us. You come in and get your body painted with mud, special grasses are tied around your neck, wrists and ankles and you get a hawk feather for each hand to make you run fast."

With a blessing and much ceremony — the runners are smacked with branches as they depart the kiva — the competitors are divided into two teams. One represents the Llametros plains people, the other the Olleros mountain people, and they all head out to the running strip, which is flanked by a big crowd.

The best runners just keep going until some three hours later there's finally a winner.

"The elevation got to a lot of us," Gehres said with a shrug, then a laugh. "By my second trip, they told me I looked a little 'pokey.' "

Coaching basketball

At St. Francis, he's making his sports name with basketball, not distance running:

"I love the game, but the last I played was back at Corpus for Jimmie Brandell, he runs the Cornerstone Bar and Grille. Back then I didn't realize how hard coaching little kids could be."

At the Christmas break, his team is 1-3 with two losses coming by a one point each time it played its main rival, the reservation's public school in Dulce. Those games had crowds that filled the gym.

While he might draw on some things he remembers from Brandell, he found himself in new territory when he was driving one of his 11-year-old players to a game against a Navajo team some 90 minutes away, which, out there, is a short road trip.

"Halfway through the trip, the kid grabs his hand and moans, 'Oh, my hand! My hand! I can't play,' " Gehres said. "I just looked at him and went, 'What in the world are you talking about?'

"And he says, 'It's those Navajos. They're cursing me. They're putting a spell on my hand. They always do it to me. They did it last year, too.'

"I didn't know quite what to say except, 'Hey, that's crazy. We're not gonna let them do that to us.' "

And with that, Gehres grinned:

"And you know what? He played ... and we won."

Kids being treated better than ever — that's how it is with the guy they now call Mr. G.