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By Barbara S. Miller, Staff writer bmiller@observer-reporter.com

There hasn't been a teachers strike in California Area School District in the 25 years since California set a then-record for Pennsylvania's longest school work stoppage.

The district, 1,400 students strong at the time of the strike, is now the second-smallest in Washington County with 1,011 enrolled. Although California University of Pennsylvania is growing, Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corp.'s Allenport plant, which accounted for 40 percent of the school district's tax base, is operating at a much reduced level, and, in fact, may close soon.

Even its record-breaking, 82-day strike fell by the wayside before the state changed its law limiting the length of teachers strikes and imposing a timetable that requires districts to hold 180 days of school before June 30. The longest teachers strike in state history, 84 days, occurred in 1984 in Greater Nanticoke Area School District, Luzerne County, according to a spokesman for the Pennsylvania School Boards Association.

"At the time, it was the longest teachers strike in Pennsylvania history, and the first time in Pennsylvania that a teacher went to jail because of a strike," recalled Gerald Cowen, now 75, who was that teacher.

Required to spend weeknights in jail after being found in contempt of court for failing to order striking teachers back to work, Cowen, spent 19 nights in jail, checking in at 8 p.m. and leaving 12 hours later.

Now retired from teaching math and computer science at California, Cowen said, "It was something that had to be done at the time. We thought we were going to be taken advantage of as a teachers' organization."

Hired in 1964 at an annual salary of $3,000, Cowen quickly became president of the teachers union. California Area experienced a month-long strike in 1979, and some say the teachers union used the district in 1982 as a chance to flex its muscle.

"You had no idea you would ever go back to work again," Cowen said. " It seemed like it would go on forever."

Washington County Judge Samuel L. Rodgers ordered Cowen to go to jail.

Cowen speculated that Rodgers, who died in 2001, may have thought that rather than see their leader go to jail, teachers would settle on a new contract.

Instead, it galvanized their resolve.

"The day the judge made the sentence, in the morning, we almost thought the thing was settled. When the judge made the sentence, it was a shock to our team and our lawyers, too."

A huge rally of union members formed in Washington as Cowen marched to his first night behind bars.

Cowen recalls the time as "hectic." What was to become known as the 24-hour news cycle was practically in its infancy, and the strike received broad coverage. The New York Times carried small stories about Cowen's jailing and the eventual settlement of the strike.

"I got a report from someone over in Germany," Cowen said, "Maybe from a service newspaper." Another clipping showed he made the news in Texas.

As local union president, Cowen was a member of the negotiating committee, but he could not participate in talks while he was in the jail.

Since his retirement, Cowen and his wife, Pat, have been active members of the California Historical Society, publishing a pictorial history of the borough a few years ago. The history book starts in about 1880 and ends about 1960, so it includes no information about the strike.

If Cowen makes a trip to Washington these days, it's more likely that he'll be going to Washington Hospital for monitoring of a heart condition rather than passing the old jail, now the Family Court Center.

"I've never been back," Cowen said of the lockup. "I didn't want to visit." He much prefers to sing baritone with a barbershop quartet, the Valley Chordsmen.

Looking back at the dispute, Cowen said he believes the strike went on for so long because "personalities got involved in it.

"We did have a mediator. He couldn't understand what the problem was. He was very instrumental in settling it. He was sent in by the labor board."

Thomas Quinn, the state's top mediator, and William J. Hannan, state-appointed fact-finder and conciliator, hammered out an agreement on Jan 30, 1983.

"They don't even think about it any more," Cowen said. "I was down buying a lottery ticket the other day, and I ran into a former student. He mentioned it. It pops up ever so rarely. Times have changed.

"After our strike was settled, it seemed to set a precedent. We don't want to go through that. We probably saved a lot of schools when they saw the stress that everybody went through.

"We hope we did some good."

The spokesman for the school board during the 82-day-strike dismissed the theory that personalities kept the sides from reaching a settlement for so long.

"We kept thinking about those kids all along," said Joe DeBlassio, a resident of the Mon Valley community of Long Branch. "I thought, 'What am I doing to these kids?'"

DeBlassio was a father of four, the youngest of whom was a kindergartner during the strike. At 65, he's now a grandfather. And he continues to hold public office, but not on the school board.

As the start of the 1982 school year rolled around, the DeBlassio family was not unfamiliar with the effects of a long strike.

DeBlassio's father was a steelworker at the Wheeling-Pittsburgh Monessen plant, and young Joe was a freshman at then-California Sate College when the United Steelworkers went on strike for 180 days.

"What a strain it had on the family," DeBlassio recalled. After graduating from Cal State, he got a job teaching math in the Bentworth School District for two years, then moved on to the California Area School District. A fellow faculty member was Gerald Cowen.

"Jerry transfered there from Brownsville Area," DeBlassio said in a recent interview."

DeBlassio left California Area in 1968 for a teaching job at Community College of Allegheny County, where, at 65, he's now chairman of the mathematics department.

DeBlassio was chosen to fill a vacancy on the California School Board just before he was elected to a four-year term. Although he knew the teachers' contract would expire during his tenure on the board, it certainly wasn't an election-year issue.

"I was there to represent the students and the people who pay taxes because I felt the teachers had their representative," DeBlassio said. "That was criminal, those kids being out that long."

"I had four children in the district at that time, too. It was a very troubling time for me as a parent, school board member and teacher."

DeBlassio was among a group of board members who were not re-elected after the strike. He went on to obtain a Ph.D. in higher education administration in 1986 at the University of Pittsburgh. He toyed with the idea of writing his dissertation on the strike. Because he was personally involved, his adviser recommended against it.

He went on to serve on Long Branch Borough Council, and he's been mayor of his community for 14 years.

Mention thel strike, and people in California today don't really want to talk about it. DeBlassio declined to speak extensively on the topic, saying he didn't want to dredge up old emotions. "It's water over the dam," he said. "It's gone. It's forgotten."

But, he added, " there are still some of the teachers who used to be my friends who never talk to me," DeBlassio said. " And I bear no animosity toward them."

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