of the celebration included, "a 50 pound Liberty Bell made up of more than 1,000 cupcakes," "a flag ceremony conducted by the Bergstrom Air Force Base Color Guard," and a student "pageant depicting the growth of the United States." Guest speakers included "the Mayor Jeffrey Friedman, Council member Margaret Hoffman, and Beverly Sheffield, director of the Austin Bicentennial Affairs Office." Historical tensions in the celebration can be discerned from the event's inclusion of a presentation from the United Daughters of the Confederacy (by Jesse E. Fox) alongside exhibitions of Mexican-American, African American, and Native American History art and history (including artists Paul Valdez, Roberto Munguia, Bertram Allen, later president of the W.H. Passon Historical Society for Black History in Austin, Obby Nwabuko, and Robert Harrington). Dawson organizers of the event included Gartner, librarian Laura Welch, physical education teacher Eddie Bellinger, art teacher Virginia Gram, and instructional aides Carolyn Saunders and Bettey Braske. WhiIe the Bicentennial program stands out as a massive undertaking, Gartner continued to put together creative programs for the school. In 1978, Gartner ambitiously put on four productions of "A Charlie Brown Christmas," featuring a total of 100 third-grade actors "to give everyone a chance at stardom." In 1980, Gartner directed "Christmas in Foreign Lands and Home." In the spring of 1979, musician and scholar Robert "Dude" Skiles, also known as "Beto" in the jazz group Beto y Los Fairlanes, visited Dawson to introduce students to an array of jazz styles: "The 30-year-old jazz musician laid down the history of jazz in a wacky way that had students and teachers alike clapping their hands and chuckling at the same time." Skiles's trumpet "Informances" at Austin area schools were partly sponsored by "a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, a local musicians' trust fund, the Austin Parks and Recreation Department and the Austin Independent School District" to educate students prior to the Austin Jazz Festival. Dawson in the 1980s Principal Mary Stinson, who happened to be the great niece of Mollie Dawson, began working at Dawson in the late 1970s. In 1980, school principal Mary Stinson initiated a "Mini-Merits" program to give students "spontaneous awards for appropriate behavior," perhaps applying some of the emerging pedagogical theories of the period. For instance, B.F. Skinner had published expansively on the psychology of positive reinforcement and "operant conditioning," including in his 1968 book, The Technologies of Teaching. Stinson introduced positive