This Month in Rochester History

Fifty years ago this month, another school year was coming to an end and Rochester was talking about the impending retirement of school district buildings superintendent Roy H. Schoof. When he was hired in 1931, Roy Schoof was one of a staff of three charged with the maintenance of the main school complex at Fourth & Wilcox streets, plus Woodward Elementary School. He took his duties very seriously and was remembered for the immaculately groomed terraced lawn he cultivated in front of the old Rochester High School. When he retired at the end of the 1960-61 school year after thirty years on the job, he was directing a maintenance staff of twenty-five in a much larger school district than the one he had started with during the Great Depression.

When interviewed on the occasion of his retirement, Mr. Schoof observed that his job had grown and the buildings had changed over the years, but the students were pretty much the same.  I wonder what he would think today.