20 YEARS LATER, ROTC CHIEF'S WORK IS DONE; LEADER PREPARING TO RETIRE.

Byline: Mary Schubert Daily News Staff Writer

Master Sgt. Jerry Hoppe is stepping down soon from his post with the school district's Junior ROTC program, just like he said he would - 20 years ago.

When Hoppe, 63, took the job with the William S. Hart Union High School District, he told administrators he would help them establish a Reserve Officer Training Corps program for students in Santa Clarita Valley high schools, but then he was going to leave. After all, he had a postdoctoral internship to complete.

Instead, he stuck around to pitch the advantages of military training to a generation of teen-agers. The district's Junior ROTC program, affiliated with the U.S. Air Force, is open to students of Canyon, Hart, Saugus and Valencia high schools. This year, 95 students are enrolled in the program, and Hoppe estimates that over the years he's taught about 3,500.

But soon - on ``30 June,'' as Hoppe says in military-speak - he will trade his uniform for civvies. ROTC cadets and the parent booster club will throw Hoppe a potluck retirement party at 7 p.m. June 9 in the Valencia High School multipurpose room, a celebration open to all his current and former students, organizers said.

Hoppe, who enlisted in the Air Force in 1953, was sent all over the world during his 22 years in the military. In Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi or wherever he and his family happened to be stationed, he attended college - whether that meant signing up for classes at the nearest university or those taught on the base.

While stationed in England, he earned a master's degree. After retiring in 1975, Hoppe moved to San Diego to pursue a Ph.D. in clinical psychology. It was then that the military summoned him to help the Hart school district set up a Junior ROTC program.

``I wasn't really interested,'' Hoppe recalled. But he spoke to the principal of Canyon High - where the ROTC program was based until moving to Valencia High a few years ago - and laid out his terms for accepting the job. After all, he wanted to put his education to use in a post-military career as a licensed marriage and family counselor, he said.

Hoppe did establish his counseling practice, but he also decided to stick with ROTC.

Students like Linsie Robinson, 16, are glad he did. The Valencia High junior has been in the program since her freshman year.

``Sgt. Hoppe really encouraged me a lot, and pushed me both physically and mentally,'' Robinson said.

``I was real quiet and shy, but as I got to know everyone (in ROTC), they really taught me leadership skills,'' she added. ``It keeps you going in the right direction, which is what most high school people need.''

Hoppe, who Robinson said is known for his distinctive walk and for his ever-present 7-Eleven Big Gulp cup of Diet Coke, takes ROTC students to military leadership camps and gets his cadets involved in local events like parades and community service projects, like the recent city cleanup day.

``His favorite saying is Five-Oh. If you did something wrong - 50 push-ups right there,'' Robinson said.

``When we're out on our (training) runs, he (follows) on his bike and says, Keep going. He can be really intimidating, but once you get to know him . . . he's like a big grandpa,'' she said.

Students who enroll in the Reserve Officer Training Corps have class every afternoon. Three days a week, they take academic courses in Air Force-related subjects like space travel, aerospace science, propulsion systems, the theory of flight, the history of aviation, meteorology, and how the human body responds to weightlessness and other aspects of being an astronaut, Hoppe said.

Two days a week, the ROTC cadets have physical training, drills and leadership classes, Hoppe said.

About 30 percent of his cadets sign up for ROTC because they intend to enlist in the military after high school graduation. Around the same number join because they hope to earn military-funded college scholarships. ``The other 40 percent are there because they need some discipline in their life, or their parents think they do,'' Hoppe said.

Those who attend college on a senior ROTC scholarship would, upon graduation, enter the military as a second lieutenant, he said. ``They pay back the government for the scholarship by working for (the military) full-time for four years,'' Hoppe said.

``Most of them will not make the service a career, but (the ROTC stint) gives you your college education and four years' experience in your career field,'' he said.

A few times a month, former students stop by district ROTC offices to visit him, Hoppe said. One husband and wife, former cadets who made the military their career, came by after finishing a tour in Japan. Another former student, now a sophomore at the U.S. Air Force Academy, hopes to become an astronaut, he said.

There was no such program when he was growing up amid the walnut orchards and grape vineyards of Contra Costa County in Northern California, recalled Hoppe, a grandfather of four who lives in Quartz Hill. But he made sure his own kids - now 32, 28 and 27 - got with the program.

``All three went through ROTC. That wasn't an option,'' Hoppe said. One son stayed with it, and is now a medic in the U.S. Coast Guard.

He has found that most of his students are ``kids who want some structure in their lives, and who really believe in the ideals of Americanism,'' Hoppe said. The cadets also want something that will ``really make them work and stretch themselves - the whole process of striving to be excellent and reaching beyond what everyone has ever told you you were capable of doing,'' he said.

Retirement will allow him more time with his wife and to indulge his hobby of amateur geology, hunting the desert for agates, geodes and other rocks, Hoppe said. Travel holds limited appeal, however, to a man sent all over the globe by Uncle Sam.

``As far as touring Europe or the Orient - been there, done that,'' Hoppe said.