April 21, 1933 – December 24, 2023
A Celebration of Life for Mel Froli will be on Saturday the 20th of April 2024 from 1pm-3pm at the Mel Froli Gym, JLS Middle School, 480 E. Meadow Drive, Palo Alto, CA. All are welcome. The celebration will feature a video, speakers, photos, memorabilia, and an opportunity for past students and colleagues to share their Mel Froli story. For those unable to attend, we will attempt to record the event for later posting.
Floral Tributes or cards may be sent to the Main Office during the week of 15-19 April 2024 care of Mel Froli, JLS, 480 E. Meadow Drive, Palo Alto, CA., 94306. They will be displayed at the event and passed on to visiting family. If possible, please sign your name, school, and graduation year.
Lifetime Palo Alto Unified School District Educator, Sports Announcer, and Volunteer, Mel Froli passed away on Christmas Eve 2023, age ninety. Mel worked for the District from 1961 to 2022. He will be greatly missed. Mel left a legacy as one of Palo Alto’s most revered educator, volunteer, and friend to thousands of former students and PAUSD colleagues.
Mel was born on the 21st of April 1933 in Alameda County, California. He was predeceased by his WWI veteran father Joseph Richard Froli, an engineer for PacBell; Mother Thelma McReynolds Froli, a supervising Nurse at the San Francisco Country Hospital; and Korean War veteran brother Joseph Richard Froli, all of California.
Mel Froli was raised in Menlo Park on Crane street across from Menlo School. Both he and his older brother graduated from Sequoia High School in 1946 and 1950 respectively. In Mel’s 1950 Sequoia High School senior photo, Mel was quoted as “very interested in sports and hopes to become a sports announcer.” Following his Sequoia High School days, Mel graduated from San Jose State in 1955 in Business Administration.
According to Mel’s college advisor, a career as a sports announcer would be difficult to acquire. Not deterred, Mel opted to start his post-college career as a teacher and a secondary school sports announcer. His career as a typing teacher first began at Jordan Junior High School under the mentorship of the famous Hugh Center, Jordan’s typing teacher and Spirit leader of the Jordan Dolphins.
Mel took great interest in Hugh’s leadership and school spirit style and adopted the same format when he became a faculty member at Terman Junior High School then only two-years old. Mel credits his hiring with the Palo Alto Unified School District (PAUSD) to his mentor, Hugh Center. Mel’s entire career was with PAUSD: sixty-years as a typing teacher, sports announcer, and volunteer. He taught at Jordan, Terman, Wilbur, Cubberley, and JLS. Moreover, Mel was a football, volleyball, and basketball sports announcer at multiple venues to include: Terman, Wilbur, JLS, Gunn, Paly, and Stanford. He also contributed as a sports booster member to all these athletic programs.
Mel acted as the faculty advisor to many yearbook editions including the commemorative Terman yearbook of 1958-78 documenting its first twenty-years and temporary closure in 1978. He founded the JLS Student-Run store and a Mock Election program at JLS beginning in 1980. Mel also managed the Panther Pride student recognition program at JLS for many years. For multiple generations of past students, Mel will always be remembered as the Terman Tiger Spirit and JLS Panther Pride.
Mel supported and was a member of several community organizations. A sample of those programs include the Palo Alto Stanford Heritage Club, Friends of the Palo Alto Library, Menlo Park Historical Association, Sequoia High School Alumni Association, and Friends of the University, San Jose State University.
One of the most amazing attributes of Mel Froli was his institutional knowledge of PAUSD, local Sports, and an ability to recall names of students over six-decades past (and siblings), and the success of many of those students’ years after they graduated. Moreover, Mel’s vast recall ability made him an accomplished Trivia Contestant and the founder and faculty advisor for the JLS Knowledge Bowl Club and event: a trivia contest designed to help students retain an array of science, history, math, art, and social science information.
Over the course of Mel’s six decades as a PAUSD educator, he was recognized by receiving the Golden Tree Award of the Sons and Daughters of Palo Alto, the “Mel Froli Day” and Mr. Terman Award by the Terman Junior High Alumni Group and named for the Mel Froli Gym at JLS.
In many ways, Mel Froli was our kind and sincere Mr. Rogers of “Mr. Rogers Neighborhood” we watched on TV, our Typing Teacher (a skill we discovered would later become instrumental in our working lives every day), Mentor, Leadership Trainor, calm and thoughtful adult Role Model, and dear and trusted friend. There will not be another one like him. For those blessed to have known him, they know what we speak of.
Mel is survived by Nephews Daniel and Kenneth Froli, Nieces Deborah Partridge and Laura Dura, grandniece Sarah, and several other grandnieces and grandnephews.