Editorial: Class-to-class, a gift that can help fight bullying

Johnny Trout won't make the 40-year reunion of his 1975 graduating class at Fremd High School this summer, but his presence will be felt there more than he ever could have imagined as he endured the teasing and bullying of some classmates during his high school years.

Trout died four years ago of a heart attack at the age of 53. By then, he had long since earned an accounting degree and built his career, and who can say what he remembered of the four years of taunting classmates acknowledge he endured as a teenager? Maybe no one. But his classmates remember. Johnny was different. He was a little overweight. He had a high voice and a slicked-over, out-of-date hairstyle. Classmates considered him intelligent but thought, in the words of one, "that something wasn't right" about him. And so he became a target.

His story, described this week by Daily Herald staff writer Eric Peterson, is probably not all that different from hundreds of bullying cases that occur in high schools year after year. But for Fremd's Class of '75 - as perhaps he should be for students of high school classes everywhere - Johnny became an object lesson, a reminder of something that should not be and something that did not have to be.

Fremd 1975 grad Mark Filosa was one of the first of his class to bring up the unpleasant memories of Trout's mistreatment. He said he has carried guilt about it for 40 years because he watched it happen and did nothing. When he raised the topic at a reunion discussion, classmate Pat Olander was touched and decided to pursue something more productive than shame. She's spearheading a scholarship drive in Trout's memory. She hopes to raise $10,000 and considers it a gift from the Class of '75 to the Class of '15.

It can be more than that.

The Class of '75 will have much to remember this August, and many positive accomplishments to revisit. It is not remotely defined by the childish behaviors of a few students - or even, reportedly, some teachers. And no doubt some of Trout's Fremd classmates did stand up for him. But the class's decision now to acknowledge a failure of youth, and its desire to help future generations avoid a similar behavior deserves attention.

The Johnny Trout Anti-Bullying Scholarships - one is intended to be given surreptitiously to a bullied student, another to someone who stood up against bullies - can't erase the memories or the effects of bad behaviors from the 1970s. Nor should they suggest that Fremd has anything more to be ashamed of than any other high school before, during or since 1975.

But they can help draw attention to a problem that hasn't gotten much better anywhere in 40 years, and they do show a class that, even in the midst of a time of fond memories, is willing to confront its least-pleasant moments and both give later generations an object lesson in the results of teenage cruelty and take material action to reduce it.

It's a unique and pretty remarkable class gift, actually. Johnny Trout won't get to see it, but perhaps it will add some comfort to his memory.