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Doris Newsum Hull, Class of 1947

October 15, 1999
By B. J. Harding, President, SPUHS Alumni Association
Santa Paula High School
Life is not always easy, as we see from this biography. Doris is the second of four children born in Fillmore to Lester and Bonnie Hart Newsum, the others being Vera, Paul, Class of 1950, and Ronald. Doris' parents worked for the Sunkist packing house. While in the eighth grade, Doris attended school in the mornings and worked in the fields in the afternoons.At the end of the eighth grade, the family moved to Santa Paula and Doris helped the family while attending SPUHS. She delivered the Star Free Press, worked as a waitress for the Mupu Indian Grill on Main Street and later as a grader at Briggs packing house.Following graduation, Doris married and moved to the San Fernando Valley where she worked as a waitress and also as a clerk for Thrifty Drugs. She then found a job as a trainee in accounts receivable bookkeeping and relief switchboard for a sand and gravel company.Doris had two daughters. After 10 years her marriage ended in divorce; she loaded her daughters in her car and moved to Yerrington, Nevada to find a new life.She fell back on her previous experience as a waitress to support her daughters, and met her next husband. They had one son. Along with waitressing, Doris worked as a clerk in a drug store and wrote a column for the Mason Valley News called "Bits of This and That."The family moved to Reno, Nevada in 1964; Doris went to work as a multilith operator, and her husband became an truck owner/driver. After four years of this arrangement it was apparent it would not work out, and this marriage dissolved.Doris next went to work for the Hanes Corp. (you know, underwear) in their distribution warehouse as an inventory control clerk. She went to school nights at Western Nevada Community College to learn warehouse distribution and transportation, and still had to work as a waitress on weekends to meet her expenses and raise her children.
In 1971 a friend introduced Doris to Laurence Hull, and she found the man who was to become her husband for 28 years. Because of his love and encouragement, her life began to change for the good.Doris was promoted to oversee the shipping and receiving for her company. She joined the Delta Nu Alpha Transportation Fraternity to represent Hanes Corp., and then became secretary and president of this organization. She volunteered for Hospice and worked for political campaigns. Her most enjoyable experience in politics was working for U.S. Senator Richard Bryan on his first run for Governor in 1982. After her retirement she worked for the voters registration office.In 1994 Laurence retired as Equipment Operations Supervisor for the Nevada Department of Transportation, and they took a cruise to Alaska. They have a travel trailer and now tour the USA and visit their children and grandchildren. Doris' mom, now 93, lives in Paradise, California, near her sister Vera and brother Paul.Doris and Laurence are spending the summer in Hawthorne in their trailer, enjoying the desert, and Laurence is leaving his retirement briefly to help a consulting firm test materials for a highway paving job. They have many dreams to fulfill and look forward to each new day with a positive attitude. This story shows life can be beautiful with the right person.