Longtime Santa Rosa High School teacher, Schools Plus co-founder John Bribiescas dies at 71

John Bribiescas, the life-altering former English teacher who did something profound to save aspects of the public school experience that compel many students to get up every morning and go to class, died Tuesday.

Bribiescas attended and for 35 years taught at Santa Rosa High School. In 1990, he responded to deep budget cuts in sports and arts by co-founding Schools Plus, a philanthropic foundation that by now has donated more than $9 million to the city’s middle schools and high schools.

Bribiescas had struggled with lung cancer for three years when he died Tuesday afternoon in the company of his wife of nearly 20 years, Carol, and other loved ones at the Kaiser Permanente Santa Rosa Medical Center. He was 71.

A vigorous advocate of Santa Rosa and of doing whatever possible to give its children a strong start in life, “Mr. B” is remembered as a giant of a teacher, a surfer, a marathon runner, an avid reader, a photographer, a man hugely proud of his Scottish and Basque heritage, an ideal coffee or lunch buddy and someone who cared mightily and who quietly did much for many.

Nearly lifelong friend and fellow Schools Plus co-founder Bill Friedman recalls the teenaged Bribiescas as “a real rebel, a ruffian.

“He turned himself around and he was a warm, caring, giving guy,” said Friedman, who graduated with Bribiescas in the Santa Rosa High Class of 1966 and went on to become chief of Friedman Home Improvement and a leading Sonoma County philanthropist.

“I think there were eight of us who started Schools Plus,” Friedman said. Bribiescas “kept the fire going. It’s successful today because of him.”

Jim Keegan, another longtime friend who’s part of a prominent Santa Rosa family, holds up Bribiescas as a unique, highly motivated and fun-loving person whose “main concern was the well-being of children in our community.”

Others close to Bribiescas note that beyond his very public roles as a teacher and a champion of sustaining sports, music, art, drama and other educational enrichments in Santa Rosa secondary schools, Bribiescas was forever helping people one-on-one.

Lisa Halverson recalled what Bribiescas, her cousin, did when he learned not long ago that an eager young musician in Santa Rosa was stymied by the lack of an instrument.

“Even dealing with cancer,” Halverson said, “he goes to Stanroy (music store) and buys her a violin.”

Said retired Santa Rosa city attorney Brien Farrell, who as a kid was a neighbor of Bribiescas, “What John did for students and families privately dwarfed what he did publicly.”

Bribiescas was born in the Los Angeles area on May 25, 1948. He was 6 months old when his parents moved the family to the Italian section of west Santa Rosa.

As a kid, Bribiescas played in DeMeo Park and he took note of all that members of the DeMeo, Keegan, Trione and Friedman families did for the people of Sonoma County through their community leadership and philanthropy.

After Bribiescas graduated from Santa Rosa High he studied at Santa Rosa Junior College, then at Sonoma State University. He launched his career as an English teacher in the East Bay and in the mid-1970s was hired on as his alma mater.

He proved to be a demanding, supremely entertaining and inspirational teacher. “‘Guardian of the Language’ is what he called himself,” Carol Bribiescas said.

Remembering Mr. B, SRHS alumnus Ben Grace of Santa Rosa’s former Grace Bros. Brewing Co. thinks back to the teacher’s “sarcastic sense of humor” and his brilliance at engaging with students, inspiring them to read books and keeping them on their toes.

“He had a way of connecting that was just unique,” said Grace, now 43 and a digital user experience designer. “He left a mark on a lot of kids.”

Bribiescas served for a time as chair of Santa Rosa High’s English department. Through the course of his career, he mentored about 8,000 students and more than a few fellow teachers.

“He encouraged me to write and to use my voice,” said Mark Wardlaw, who retired last year as a highly regarded music teacher at Santa Rosa High.

Offered former neighbor and city attorney Farrell, “He was a dedicated teacher, as professional as any in the state. But he also saw into the heart and soul of his students. He believed in hard work and determination. He did not give good grades, unless they were earned.

“He would do anything to help students achieve their potential. He did that again and again.”

In 1990, public schools leaders in Santa Rosa and elsewhere around California announced that state budget deficits would force the reduction or elimination of spring sports and other extracurricular programs. Deeply concerned about the potential effects of the cuts, Bribiescas and some partners created what they called the Educational Enrichment Fund.

It soon became Schools Plus.

In a June 1991 guest editorial in the Press Democrat, Bribiescas urged Santa Rosans to embrace and support School Plus and prevent the potential fallout of a decline in the city’s schools.

“Real estate values will drop,” he wrote. “Eventually the business and corporate sectors will be hard-pressed to attract new business. Employers will have to look to a local work force that is the product of less than adequate programs.

“Indeed the entire social and spiritual infrastructure suffers when the educational needs of our children cannot be completely met. If extracurricular programs are no longer available to children, television and mischief are easier choices.”

Many parents, educators, business and community leaders took Bribiescas’ plea to heart.

Donations flowed into fundraisers than included a telethon, then a “Night Under the Lights” gala. The Schools Plus board made cash grants that saved or helped to sustain sports and arts and other programs at the city’s secondary schools.

In 2010, when Schools Plus itself went into decline because of burnout among longtime directors, Bribiescas took on the huge task of attracting a new board and revitalizing the organization.

Bribiescas remained on the board of Schools Plus, which last year granted nearly $190,000 to Santa Rosa’s middle and high schools. Some of those dollars were used to buy winter coats for five Santa Rosa High School sports programs.

Leaders of Schools Plus have announced the creation of a permanent John B. Bribiescas Scholarship. Bribiescas’ decades of extracurricular efforts on behalf of the best and most well-rounded education possible for Santa Rosa’s children have brought him a variety of other awards and honors.

Bribiescas was 62 when he retired from teaching in 2009. People close to him tell of being with him in public and, time after time, former students approach exclaiming “Mr. B!” and recount how he turned them on to books or got them to stop being tardy or equipped them for rewarding careers and lives.

A Christian, Bribiescas was active in Bible studies and other activities at Santa Rosa Bible Church. His wife said his faith and the support of the church no doubt contributed to him living far beyond how long he was estimated to live following his 2017 diagnosis of stage IV lung cancer.

“They gave him basically six months to a year,” Carol Bribiescas said. “We have strong faith in God, and we have an army of people praying for us.”

Friend Vic Trione watched Bribiescas continue to swim and work out well into his ordeal with cancer.

“He was a real fighter,” Trione said. “He was never down, he was always up.”

Carol Bribiescas said her husband was sustained, too, by his love of life and of his family and friends, and the San Francisco Giants. She added, “He loved being in his backyard. He loved being at home.

“He lived life.”

In addition to his wife in Santa Rosa, John Bribiescas is survived by his sister, Anna Bribiescas of Santa Rosa; his stepsons, Erick Roeser of Santa Rosa and Kevin Roeser of Santa Rosa, and three grandchildren. His brother, widely revered Santa Rosa High soccer coach Danny Bribiescas, died in 2015 at age 56.

John Bribiescas’ family is making plans for a public celebration of his life.