The Duval County Budget Commission adopted a proposed $43.1 million school budget for 1965-66, $7.6 million below the amount requested by the school board.
The proposal included a $2 million reduction in the teachers’ salary account.
Commission Chair Carl Langston said the motion would not be final until after a public hearing scheduled Nov. 19, but teachers took swift action in protest.
They began an immediate boycott of all before- and after-school activities, including football coaching, ticket taking and selling, lunchroom supervision and the supervising of loading and unloading children on school buses.
The response was ordered by the Duval Teachers Association, one of three actions intended to focus attention on the county’s public education plight.
The association also sent a notice of censure to the commission and notified Gov. Haydon Burns and various national and state educational organizations of the suspension of activities.
Teachers asked parents to step in and take over the boycotted activities, but Constance Carson, association president, said teachers would “keep a watchful eye” on any activity that involved pupil safety and welfare.
If trouble or danger developed, teachers would be expected to step in and handle it if no parent or other adult was in charge, she said.
The morning after the boycott decision was reached, the following message was read to students in their classrooms: “Your teachers wish you to know that the withdrawal of all extracurricular services by your teachers is not being done to punish you. It is being done as one of the sanctions against the Duval County Budget Commission voted on by the teachers of the county.
“Your teachers feel strongly that we must take vigorous action to ensure the development of a better and broader school program for all of you. We are determined that Duval County must adequately support our school system.”
Mayor Lou Ritter said the association acted too quickly in implementing the boycott. He called the refusal to participate in extracurricular activities “the next thing to an out-and-out strike.”
U.S. Rep. Charles Bennett of Jacksonville sounded a note of concern about the problems the school funding issue was causing at Naval Air Station Cecil Field, Jacksonville Naval Air Station and Mayport Naval Station.
“There is a growing opinion among naval authorities in Washington that the future of Jacksonville’s naval complex is imperiled by the poor schools,” he said.
A finance expert from Gainesville said Duval County had the worst plan of government organization in the country — a system that led to government of the politicians, by the politicians and for the politicians.
R.L. Johns, chairman of the Department of Education Administration at the University of Florida College of Education, said the county’s government was “the stupidest I’ve been able to find in the United States. Authority and responsibility are so divided that if you do want good schools, you don’t know how to vote for them and get them.”
He made the remarks at a meeting sponsored by the executive committee of the Duval County Taxpayers Association.
“I would divorce the school board completely from the Budget Commission so you can’t dodge around politically and confuse the issues so people can’t get good schools when they want them. That’s the only permanent solution,” Johns said.
• Tom the Angus — grand champion of the Greater Jacksonville Fair’s inaugural livestock auction — was sold for $1.05 a pound, bringing owner Barbara Jones of Dinsmore a check for $876.75.
The exemplary animal was purchased by W.B. Kopp, buyer for Food Fair. He said the steer would be slaughtered and sold to the grocery chain’s customers.
In spirited bidding at the Gator Bowl, the reserve champion, 960-pound Dynamite, also an Angus, was purchased for 85 cents a pound by the Gulf Life Insurance Co. Vice President Byron Morris did the bidding.
The big spender of the evening was Morrison’s Cafeteria, which bought five steers for $1,313.75.
Auctioneer James Pace said prices paid for the 29 animals auctioned were exceptionally good.
“These boys and girls have worked hard and they deserve it,” he said.
Thirteen head of hamburger on the hoof failed to attract any bidders, but Jones Chambliss Packing Co. backed the sellers — all members of the 4-H Club and Future Farmers of America — by paying 2.5 cents per pound over the commercial price.
• Men in Jacksonville were adopting a new personal style philosophy.
Practicality was being replaced by vanity and haircuts were evolving into hair “fashionings,” said Jack Forehand, co-owner of Florida Barber College. “I expect to see men wear their hair longer and be more concerned with having it styled. If there’s any trend in the barbering business, that’s the trend,” he said.
The new “continental sculptured razor cut” involved massaging a styling jelly into the scalp, lubricating the hair before it was trimmed with a razor. That allowed hair to be removed “much as a sculptor removes gobs of clay,” said Forehand.
There were two styles they refused to give at the college. One was the “Yul Brynner,” named for the head-shaved movie star, and the “Mohawk,” which was a Yul Brynner on the sides and “a long coon’s tail down the middle,” said Forehand.
• Details were being worked out to establish a joint city-county tuberculosis project if means could be found to obtain an X-ray machine, said Dr. Patricia Cowdery, director of the Duval County Health Department.
The federal government would furnish salaries and everything but the X-ray machine, she said.
A few cases of tuberculosis had been diagnosed among employees of the county road department and the X-ray program was needed to protect those who might be affected. But the county was not equipped to X-ray about 400 people involved, including some prisoners, said Cowdery.
She also reported state Board of Health mobile units for X-rays had been sent to Miami to be used in examining Cuban refugees.
Sending the portable units to Miami was “like sending our fire equipment down there,” said County Commissioner Julian Warren.
• Describing it as “the most important announcement in the history of the state,” Gov. Haydon Burns revealed Walt Disney Enterprises of California purchased nearly 30,000 acres near Orlando.
Burns was mayor of Jacksonville until he resigned in 1964 after being elected to the top state office.
In a speech in Miami to the Florida League of Municipalities, Burns said the land would be used to build “a new tourist mecca that would surpass in size and attractiveness the original Disneyland in Southern California.”
Burns said the Disney deal took 18 months to complete and Disney’s representatives told him the site would house “the greatest attraction known in the country.”
However, representatives of Disney at the meeting quickly denied any plans had been made for the tract and Burns later retracted that portion of his remarks.
“All this announcement today was for was to let people know we’ve got real estate. We still have many problems to work out,” said William Potter, former vice president of the New York World’s Fair and head of the Disney project.
There had been much speculation for months about the unknown buyers, who paid $5 million for the tract.
Both Burns and Disney officials refused to confirm reports published in Orlando newspapers that the project when complete would represent a $30 million investment and employ 5,000 people.