In brief: Air Force Academy names female leader
Air Force Academy, Colo. – Maj. Gen. Michelle Johnson has been chosen to be the next superintendent of the Air Force Academy, the first woman to hold the job.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced Johnson’s appointment Friday. Academy officials said the Senate must first approve her promotion to a three-star lieutenant general, the rank required to become superintendent.
Johnson is currently NATO’s deputy chief of staff for operations and intelligence.
She is a 1981 graduate of the academy, where she became the school’s first female cadet wing commander and first female Rhodes scholar. Johnson played varsity basketball all four years at the academy and is the women’s team’s second-highest all-time scorer with 1,706 points.
She is a command pilot with more than 3,600 flight hours in large cargo planes and aerial refueling tankers.
Brown blocks parole of Manson follower
Sacramento, Calif. – California Gov. Jerry Brown on Friday blocked parole for Bruce Davis, a former follower of notorious killer Charles Manson.
Brown said in his written decision he did not believe Davis, who is in prison for taking part in two Manson family murders, “was just a reluctant follower who passively went along with the violence.”
“Until Davis can acknowledge and explain why he actively championed the family’s interests and shed more light on the nature of his involvement,” Brown went on, “I am not prepared to release him.”
Davis, 26 at the time of the murders, was convicted in 1972 for taking part in the killings of aspiring musician Gary Hinman and ranch hand Donald Shea, who also worked as a Hollywood stuntman.
Teacher, 94, retires after 63-year career
Los Angeles – Rose Gilbert wanted to be a schoolteacher since she was in the first grade and was inspired by the teacher who taught her to read and write.
Gilbert carried out that childhood dream with a rare commitment – she retired last week at the age of 94 after a 63-year teaching career in the Los Angeles School District.
“I’m going to be 95. I looked in the mirror and said, ‘I better do it now before I get too old,’ ” she joked. “I didn’t want to leave, but I didn’t want to be carried out on a stretcher.”
It’s unclear if Gilbert is the oldest fulltime classroom teacher among the nation’s teaching corps of more than 3 million, but she certainly ranks among the most senior. She started teaching in the 1940s, took a break and then returned to the classroom in 1956.
In 1961, she joined the staff at the brand new high school opening in the well-heeled Pacific Palisades section of Los Angeles and remained there until Feb. 22, passing along her passion for poetry and literature to generations of students.