Richard Nixon

=== Primary and secondary education ===
[[File:Richard Nixon HS Yearbook.jpg|left|thumb|Nixon as a senior at [[Whittier High School]] in 1930]]
Nixon attended East Whittier Elementary School, where he was president of his eighth-grade class.{{sfn|Black|p=16}} His older brother Harold had attended [[Whittier High School]], which his parents thought resulted in Harold's dissolute lifestyle, before he contracted tuberculosis (that killed him in 1933). They decided to send Nixon to the larger [[Fullerton Union High School]].{{sfn|Morris|p=89}}{{sfn|Black|pp=17–19}} Though he had to ride a school bus an hour each way during his freshman year, he received excellent grades. Later, he lived with an aunt in [[Fullerton, California|Fullerton]] during the week.{{sfn|Morris|p=91}} He played junior varsity football, and seldom missed a practice, though he rarely was used in games.{{sfn|Morris|p=92}} He had greater success as a debater, winning a number of championships and taking his only formal tutelage in public speaking from Fullerton's Head of English, H. Lynn Sheller. Nixon later mused on Sheller's words, "Remember, speaking is conversation...don't shout at people. Talk to them. Converse with them."{{sfn|Aitken|p=28}} Nixon said he tried to use a conversational tone as much as possible.{{sfn|Aitken|p=28}}

At the start of his junior year in September 1928, Nixon's parents permitted him to transfer to Whittier High School. At Whittier, Nixon lost a bid for student body president, representing his first electoral defeat. At this period of his life, he often rose at 4&nbsp;a.m. to drive the family truck to Los Angeles to purchase vegetables at the market and then drove to the store to wash and display them before going to school. Harold was diagnosed with tuberculosis the previous year; when their mother took him to Arizona hoping to improve his health, the demands on Nixon increased, causing him to give up football. Nevertheless, Nixon graduated from Whittier High third in his class of 207.{{sfn|Black|pp=20–23}}