Born on April 13, 1909, Bates is a former Shepherd Public Schools teacher and secondary principal. He has lived in Coe Township since 1915 when he moved to the area with his parents at the age of 6.

Bates graduated Shepherd High School in 1926 and from Central State Teachers College in Mt. Pleasant in 1929 with a two-year life certificate in education. He began teaching at the Walling School, where he remained for six years as a rural teacher.

Bates returned to Central in 1935 to complete his undergraduate work, where he majored in mathematics and agricultural science. Upon graduating, he served as the Beaverton Rural Agricultural School for five years and became high school principal, before being drafted for military service.

Discharged from the Army in 1945, Bates returned to public school work in the fall of 1946 as a teacher of mathematics in the Shepherd Public Schools and stayed with the system as a math instructor for two years, junior high principal for two years and high school principal for for 23 years until retiring in 1973.

Bates has been very active in the Shepherd United Methodist Church, and volunteering through the Community Soup Kitchen, Food With Friends, and Meals on Wheels. He also assisted in the establishment of the Shepherd Area Historical Society and the Little Red School House Museum and Power House Museum in Shepherd.

Q. The saying goes You're only as old as you feel,' so how old do you really feel?

A. I would have to say I probably don't act my age all the time. I feel quite old in many respects because it has slowed me down so much. Not the age particularly, but what my problem is today largely is I have problems with vertigo. If I didn't have the cane, I would be very unsteady as far as maneuvering from one place to the other.

Q. Explain what it was like to live through the Great Depression and how that impacted your life?

We had to do without so many things and the thing that I remember much about it was the closing of the banks and not having money for a short spell and wondering whether or not the banks would open again. We had two banks in Shepherd at that time, the Commercial Bank and the Central State Savings Bank, and both of them closed for the amount of time they were required to close until an inspection determined they could be opened again. Fortunately both of our banks were able to open again.

Another thing I remember distinctly was what happened to wages during that period of time. I was teaching rural school at the time the Great Depression started and my salary for the year when I started was $1,000 per year and during the depression my salary decreased to $685 for the year. People were having to make due on a lot less money and materials because some foods were hard to come by and I'm not so sure there was not some rationing taking place.

Q. How has "The Sweetest Little Town Anywhere Around," Shepherd, changed since you moved there in 1915 with your parents?

A. It hasn't changed too much at all because population wise we're not that much larger than we were years ago. One of the changes brought about was when they decided to take Old 27 out of the Village of Shepherd and establish Federal Road on the west side.

Q. What makes Shepherd such a nice and friendly community that you've wanted to live here basically your entire life?

A. I think it's the people we have here that are just friendly in nature.

Q. Your educational career spanned everything from teacher to principal, which aspect did you enjoy the most and why?

A. The principal taught classes when I started. I'm very grateful for the rural school experience as a teacher. It was a broad variation from the rural school to the high school, from teaching to the administrative.

I've had all types of teaching experiences in my lifetime because of the rural experience and going through the depression with it and ending up as secondary principal at the Shepherd Public Schools.

I liked working with the students and if anything as an administrator I missed was the fact that I had to give up teaching the mathematics classes and spend full-time as the principal, but that was another challenge.

Q. What was it like when the Shepherd community established the Shepherd Community Fund Honoring Robert H. Bates?

A. I was very reticent about giving into the use of my name for the Shepherd account. I have never cared for the personal publicity. I would rather work in the background any day than being in the forefront where people are taking pictures.

But I consider it to be an honor because of the nature of the foundation itself. They have done so much for the Village of Shepherd and mine is for scholarships and agriculture.

Q. Describe your military experience.

I was in the Company C 167 Regiment of the 31st Infantry Division (Army.) It was interesting to a certain extent. It depended on upon where you were going to be stationed. We were stationed in the southwest pacific on the island of New Guinea to start with. The natives that live there, the men have merely a loin cloth and the ladies have a square piece of cloth across their body.

I didn't get into the first part of the war because I had a deferment for one year while I was the principal at Beaverton Rural Agricultural School before getting into Shepherd. Our assignment was island hopping. We were bypassing the islands of the southwest Pacific. We moved from New Guinea to the island of Morotai, which is one of the smaller islands of the Netherlands and East Indies. That was our first experience in moving in the southwest pacific with a fleet. We moved all the way to the Philippines.

Q. What is the one thing you would like to be remembered for and why?

I would like to be remembered as having done a successful piece of work while I was in the school systems. I don't think you could ask for anything much better.

Q. Do you have any regrets?

A. You can always look back and see certain situations and I can do this as far as my administrative experience in school was concerned. I'm sure there were different times in dealing with the student body and students in general that I could have done a better job. I was always interested in doing the best that I could do and do some things than better than I was doing them even. I think that's a good regret to have because it keeps you on your toes and keeps you interested in trying to improve yourself.

Q. Of all today's modern conveniences, are there any you wish you had when you were growing up?

A. I think people were much more happy with the simpler ways of life than they are now. I can remember as a farmer when we used to have thrashing bees. Today people don't get together and help each other out with work. The farmers have large tractors and when we came to Michigan we had three draft horses and two light horses and the draft horsed did all the work. My father never owned a tractor and it was more simple in those days and farmers worked together.   , JEREMY H. DICKMAN, The Morning Sun - Mt. Pleasant,MI,USA