![]() Standing in her Buckeye Street home, neatly dressed, her light hair coiffed in tight curls, her eyes lively and attentive, Taschioglou, a graduate of Boston University, said, “I’ve always been a teacher.”Īs the story goes, in the early 1950s, Baltimore-based Burt Claster Productions prepared for the debut of “Romper Room,” and Claster’s teacher wife Nancy was the first “Miss Nancy,” considered the prototype teacher for the children’s show that featured a shiny elementary classroom.Īt some point in the mid-1950s, while the family lived in Bangor, Taschioglou heard about the auditions for “Romper Room” at KABB-TV but needed child care in order to take time for the tryout. In a photo taken in the early 1960s, Jean Taschioglou of Vacaville teaches two children during an episode of the children’s TV program “Romper Room” at the KFBB-TV station in Great Falls, Montana. “She just saw the good in everything and trusted everyone, even when she probably shouldn’t have.Like most preschool or elementary school teachers, she brought joy, a love of learning, kindling wonder, and imagination in the lives of her students, some of them in Vacaville in later years.īut to thousands more on television in the 1950s and ’60s, in the era of black-and-white TV sets, Jean Taschioglou of Vacaville was a “Miss Jean” in a regional broadcast of “Romper Room,” in Bangor, Maine, and, later “Miss Nancy” in Great Falls, Montana, leaving the children’s show in 1964 when her Air Force officer husband, Byron, was transferred to Travis Air Force Base.ĭuring an interview last week, Taschioglou, who turns 90 on Thursday, looked back on her brief TV career teaching math, spelling, and etiquette - and arguably a kinder citizenry and shared future - to a handful of preschoolers in TV studios and to an unseen audience of many thousands, no doubt also transfixed when she held up the frame of a hand mirror, a show tradition, the “Magic Mirror,” and called out the selected first names of young viewers she could “see” in their homes. “She brought sunshine wherever she went,” Del Rosario said. Sometimes people who saw her on the show sought her out at home. Del Rosario made the decision because of a string of break-ins and her mother’s trusting personality. King moved from her home in Hacienda Heights to the Oakmont of Chino Hills senior community in 2015. Officials later decided to offer the program without accepting a $30,000 grant from China. In 2010, she fought against the controversial implementation of a Confucius Classroom, sponsored by the Chinese government, at a middle school in Hacienda La Puente Unified School District. King was a lifelong advocate for education. She took the job after school officials told her “if you think you can do better, come and do it,” when she complained about one of her daughters’ classes. “In her words, that was the end of the rainbow, where the dream was,” her daughter said.Īfter “Romper Room,” she went deeper into education, teaching as part of a regional occupation program that helped high school students learn technical skills. She appeared in advertisements and talk shows in Texas and Kansas, until she was asked to come to Hollywood to host “Romper Room.” But when an actress couldn’t nail the lines, she stepped in and impressed the producers, Del Rosario said. Originally from Oklahoma, King wrote commercials before she ever appeared in one. ![]() “She set the bar high for all ‘Romper Room’ teachers, and like all of her much younger students, I always wanted her to be proud of me.” “She was just so important in the lives of so many little kids,” Serrano said. While studying education in college, Serrano looked at King as a role model. It was the first time the two hosts sat together, Serrano said. “That was my little way of encouraging her and respecting her. “She really is the one that most people remember with her beautiful red hair and her lady-like demeanor and her sweet voice,” Serrano said. She presented it to King on Countdown with Keith Olbermann. Socorro Serrano, who hosted “Romper Room” as “Miss Soco” from 1975 to 1990, dug out her Magic Mirror after learning of the theft. In 2003, a mugger snatched King’s bags, including one containing her Magic Mirror. Magic Mirror, tell me today, did all my friends have fun at play?” the host asked. ![]() “Romper, bomper, stomper, boo, tell me, tell me, tell me do. On the show, she taught children how to behave - and how not to behave - with the help of “Do Bee” and “Don’t Bee.” She closed off each show with her Magic Mirror at the end to read off the first names of children watching, many of them submitted by their parents.
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