Local News

Bill Coate Honored as Grand Marshall of Madera South Homecoming

MADERA - Local historian and newspaper columnist Bill Coate was honored by Madera South High School Friday when he was selected to be Grand Marshall of the 2015 Homecoming parade. Coate drove through the streets of Madera towards Madera South High School in a convertible Mustang from Silva Ford with his grandson and daughter Friday afternoon. Then later that night in the middle of Lee DaSilva Field at Memorial Stadium, flipped the coin with the officials to start the football game.

After leaving his native state of Florida, Bill Coate enlisted in the United States Air Force in 1959. While he was stationed at Mather Air Force Base near Sacramento, he met and married Mary Ann Judge. They have been married for 54 years. Bill and Mary have two children, Debbie and John. They have five grandchildren, Jordan Scott, Sara Coate, William Coate, Emily Coate, and Kristine Kemmer. They also have two great grandchildren, Milo and Grace.

After his discharge from the military, Bill and his family moved to Pasadena, CA where he enrolled in Pasadena Nazarene College. He graduated in 1972 and moved to Chowchilla for his first teaching assignment. While teaching in Chowchilla, he earned his Master’s degree in history at Fresno State.

Bill is a veteran of 36 years in education as a teacher and a principal. His teaching career also includes 20 years as an adjunct faculty member at National University's Fresno campus.

He is the founder of the Madera Method, a research based educational program that utilizes primary source material to bring students face to face with history on its own terms. He is also the founder of the Madera Method Wagon Train, which provided young people with "real life" learning experiences with mules and wagons and time on the trail.

Bill has been published in several educational and historical journals as well as many well-known newspapers across the United States. He was named "National History Teacher of the Year by the Daughters of the American Revolution and was a California Teacher of the Year finalist.

Over the years, Bill has been the recipient of numerous other awards for his innovative teaching. He was one of 39 educators who were recognized nationally by the Disney Company for creativity in the classroom and given the Disney American Teacher Award. Disney later featured Bill in a national public service spot entitled "The Power of Teaching." It aired on ABC, Disney Channel, and ESPN. Harvard University's Graduate School of Education featured Bill in a documentary entitled, "Inside the Creative Classroom."

For 25 years, Bill has written history columns for The Madera Tribune and in addition, for more than a decade he was the host of "Twist in Time," a twice weekly television show aired on KMPH Fox 26 in Fresno.

When he is not teaching, Bill spends his time writing and speaking. He is the author of Twist in Time: History's Mysteries Revealed (2005), History's Shocking Secrets (2006), History's Outrageous Oddities (2007), Shocking Secrets of American History (2008), and Even More Shocking Secrets of American History (2009).

When informed that he had been chosen as Madera South High School’s Homecoming Grand Marshal for 2015, Bill expressed dismay and said, “For the first time in my life, I don’t know what to say. I am speechless.”