Tom Shearer calls himself a “true blue T-Bird through and through.” It’s tough to argue. He graduated from Mount Tahoma High School in 1975. He spent six years at his alma mater as a teacher, two years as an assistant principal and seven years in the top job.

Now Shearer, 51, is the superintendent of the American International School of Lagos, Nigeria. AISL was established in 1964 in cooperation with the U.S. State Department and the Tacoma School District, and teachers from the South Sound have been working in the West African nation ever since.

We wanted to know about teaching in the oil-rich yet poverty- and corruption-plagued country. Shearer responded to several e-mailed questions while sitting in Murtala Muhammed International Airport and waiting to board a flight to Nairobi, Kenya.

Q: How did you land in Lagos?
A: Interesting enough, I served as the Superintendent of the American International School of Lagos, Nigeria (AISL) for three years from 1993-96. It was an honor and a privilege to do so then as it is now. Like many of the Administrators in Tacoma who have served in this capacity, I am proud to have carried on the tradition of Tacoma educators to have come to AISL, but one of the few who have had the fortune to return. We (my wife Lori) returned to AISL in July of 2006 to develop the current school and to engage in a project to develop a High School curriculum and build a second facility for high school. Currently AISL is located on eight acres of land and has about 700 students.

For many years, AISL had students only up to Grade 9 and then they went back to the Unitedd States or to boarding schools in Europe. Now we have added Grade 10 and will add Grade 11 in 2008-09. The school has purchased another piece of land to build a new High School and we are ready to break ground on May 14th, 2008 with a completion date targeted for August 2009. Lori and I love the school and appreciate what the school has done for our two sons (Matt and Brett) during their schooling here in the 1990s.

The school is much different than those in Tacoma in the sense that it is a private non-profit organization set up by the State Department in conjunction with the Tacoma School District in 1964. Some of the differences are entrance requirements, class size capacity, and most importantly an international population that represents over forty-five (45) different nationalities. I am on a three-year contract which will end in June 2009.

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I just received an email from Tom Shearer. He was the principal at Mount Tahoma during its move to the new building (and an alumnus – Class of 1975). He is the superintendent of the American International School in Lagos, Nigeria.

I asked him about his thoughts of moving the school’s iconic rock, blasting it, slicing it, etc.

Here’s his response:

Although the rock has a lot of sentimental value to us who graduated from Mt. Tahoma, however as principal it was a constant chore to keep clean and graffiti free. When the new building was under construction, we had worked with the contractor and a parent who was willing to help move it to the new site because of the historical significance. But to coordinate that was difficult. I tried for the entire year the school first opened and had no luck.

Maybe it is time to move on and let history be. It was a unique feature to the old school, but now the students there at the new site can create their own. I trust that the principal will know what is best!

You don’t often hear about guys like Tony Painter. He’s working in Baghdad, but he’s not in the military. Nor is he a diplomat. He’s a contractor – and not that kind of contractor. He’s one of the thousands of Americans working in the shattered country.

Who is Tony? He’s a 37-year-old Tacoma guy who, when living stateside, is within easy walking distance of Frisko Freeze. He graduated from Wilson and UW-Tacoma. He's worked in Tacoma and also spent some time with KBR in Afghanistan.

I’ve asked him to provide occasional slice-of-life pieces for us. I thought his perspective on things could be a bit different than the usual stuff we read coming out of the Baghdad. Here's his first letter

I can only give you an account from my perspective, which is limited since (thankfully) I am confined to the base. We don’t go driving around in the streets like the military. I can tell you that our base still experiences multiple daily ‘indirect fire attacks’ – mil-talk for insurgents lobbing in random mortars and/or rockets. There were just a number of people lost a few days ago. I was woken up twice last night by two large explosions, once at about 10 p.m. and another around 1 a.m. Tends to make you think what the heck you’re doing working over here.

It’s not as hot now as it was during the summer…our highs are only reaching about 100 degrees during the day, which is much better than the 120-130s it was during the summer.

I occasionally run into guys that area based out of Fort Lewis and it’s always fun to talk about where they’ve been in T-Town…nightlife-wise, I’d say the Loft comes up more than any other place. I can only imagine the increase in business the downtown clubs are going to experience when (or if) these guys (and gals) get to go home. Other than that, don’t often run into people from the Northwest.

Tony Painter contacted me all the way from Iraq, where he's a civilian contractor, to give his two cents' worth on Brick City (among other topics). You'll be hearing more from Tony in the future; he's a local guy and I've asked him to send updates every once in a while about life as a contractor in Iraq.

But for now, here's his take on Brick City:

It’s ridiculous that the neighboring biz owners are blaming any lack of business of Fri/Sat nights on a few teenagers hanging out in front of one of the very few places they can go to socialize. They should be looking at what they are lacking in services as to why they are not being patronized, not shifting the blame to what they must view as the ‘scary youth’ across the street. The streets of downtown nightlife areas are supposed to be filled with people enjoying themselves and the accompanying bit of noise comes with the territory. I speak now towards the people choosing to live in that area – it’s a choice and they should know what they are getting in to. It’s a lot better than when Drakes will still operating down there! Pacific between 7th and 9th used to get really crazy!...and that’s a good thing, not something evil.

He later added this:

Yes, you may post my comments about the Brick City issue. Full disclosure – I used to be one of the promoters for the ‘Paradox’ club that was on Puyallup Avenue (now Barefoot Studios I think) that Club Impact also operated out of…and having said that, I can see how that particular location was maybe better suited to our type of business, as there were not any neighbors to bother with noise or outside activity. In fact, at the time, the old Bubble Room kitty corner to us used to appreciate the extra biz they drew from the over 21 crowd who patronized some of our bigger shows but couldn’t drink on our premises since it was an all ages event. We even sent the entertainers over there for meals. My comment still holds though – downtown areas area supposed to be vibrant at night and you have to take the good with the (perceived) bad that accompanies crowds of people out enjoying themselves.