Rick Cole exposed

When Ramon "Ray" Cortines, former PUSD superintendent, called from Hawaii a couple weeks back to comment on the death of former Marshall High principal Effie Sapp, I asked him about "intellectual trouble-makers" Chris Sutton, Rick Cole, Jonathan Jackson and Larry Wilson, Blair students in the early 1970s.

Rick and friends were frequently at odds with the administration, sometimes over the underground, Marxist newspaper Chris published and took the heat for.

"It was rough on me because I really didn't think underground newspapers were bad," Ray says. "They were on the right track of having people be sensitive to all ethnicities, and I thought their voice was important."

But it was a more personal form of expression for which Rick had to answer.

"I remember expelling him for mooning," Ray recalls.

It wasn't a first - or second - offense, he added. "It was on the wall out front. He did it, and he kept doing it," he explains. "Rick was always great at that; he could always put it on somebody else. God they were bright."

I couldn't reach Rick today to confirm, but it's more likely he was only suspended, because he went on to graduate on schedule. And any rift over Moon-gate didn't last long, apparently, as Ray hired him to be a full-time "student liaison" about a year after leaving Blair. Which, according to Larry, meant being paid to walk around the high school campuses and talk to people.

Update: Rick Cole has a city-sanctioned blog of his own. Which prompts me to make a public appeal to Cynthia Kurtz, Rick's counterpart here in Pasadena: My week isn't complete until I've read your "Information Letter" dispatches to the council, but it's time to let go of the green-sheeted past and enter the 21st Century.