Hundreds of kids learned how to debate and become public speakers because of Ruth Yoder, who taught in the Pueblo schools for decades.
Yoder, who died at 101 on Nov. 4, joined her first husband — the late Homer Bisel, viewed by some as a legendary debate coach — in teaching students how to research a subject, comprehend and be able to present good arguments, said Mario Avalos, who was a student of hers at Roncalli High School in the 1960s.
“We learned how to express ourselves, whether for a prepared speech or extemporaneously,” said Avalos, of Rye.
Bisel was known for his strictness and discipline, but his wife “was just as focused and driven,” said Avalos.
Students often referred to Bisel as “Chief” or “Chiefie” and called his wife “Mis-Chief.” His debate teams at Centennial High School went to the nationals 12 years, said Avalos.
“We practiced night after night,” said another student, Marvin Stein of Pueblo.
Both the Bisels were hard-nosed on not only the delivery and debate techniques but whether the students’ research and quotes were correct. “If the evidence was suspect, God help you,” said Stein.
The Bisels got $100 a year for being debate coaches, and often paid for trips to debate meets out of their own pockets.
For years, after she had stopped teaching, Ruth Bisel Yoder kept in touch with her former students by gathering them for dinner at her house. “She was the glue,” said Stein.
Yoder’s other passion was politics, which began when “she was a child and went campaigning with her grandfather, John R. Williams,” who was running for county commissioner, said Avalos.
She was born into a Republican family, he said, but the first presidential election she could vote in was when Franklin Roosevelt was running. She told her mother she was voting for FDR “and her mother talked to her for 45 minutes trying to change her mind,” Avalos said. It didn’t work.
She remained a Democrat all her life, and her last wish was to find out whether a Democrat had won the White House. Her health drove her to vote “as early as she could” this year, said Avalos.
She died on election night after he told her Barack Obama had won.
She often worked to get people registered, said an old friend, Bill Mattoon, a Pueblo lawyer. For years, Yoder lived in a retirement community, and every election year, she’d work on her neighbors who weren’t registered.
“She’d grumble and say, ‘I don’t know why I do this. Everybody here is a Republican,’ ” recalled Mattoon.
Ruth Cecelia Bradshaw was born in Albuquerque on Aug. 25, 1907, and spent much of her childhood in Aspen.
She earned her bachelor of science degree at the University of Colorado in Boulder, taught grade school for 13 years and coached debate five years at Roncalli High and two years at Chaminade Prep School in St. Louis.
She married Homer Bisel in 1940. They lived in Seattle for a year and then moved back to Pueblo. He died in 1973.
She later married Ted Yoder, and he died in 1998. She had no children.
Virginia Culver: 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com
