Retired La Conner High Faculty members make teachers' meeting

Class reunion season here isn’t just for former students.

Retired La Conner High teachers and administrators also gather each summer for what’s fondly called an “old school lunch” on the waterfront.

The class act resumed Wednesday afternoon on the outdoor deck of the La Conner Pub & Eatery.

Some came from as far as the Olympic Peninsula. Many, however, still reside locally – living in or near a town much different from the sleepy fishing village with boarded up downtown storefronts that greeted most when first hired at La Conner High.

These are no ordinary pensioners.

Most enjoy active retirements matching the busy careers they forged while molding successive generations of local teens into today’s business, academic and environmental leaders.

The group, some of whom began teaching in the historic two-story brick building that now houses the school district’s administrative offices, includes a number who launched second acts as college instructors, writers, entrepreneurs, public officials and members of various agency and service club boards and panels.

Teaching students to be adaptable was a lesson not lost on themselves. After all, they started out in education before computers and calculators, when Wi-Fi access wasn’t a must, and Vietnam was the lead story on the nightly news.

One, Gene Fowler, returned from helicopter duty in Vietnam to finish college and accept a teaching position at La Conner. He taught typing and accounting in the pre-computer days and served a lengthy tenure as varsity baseball coach.

On Wednesday, Fowler re-connected with former student Kevin Paul, now a member of the Swinomish Tribal Senate and himself a La Conner High instructor.

Paul, also a nationally recognized carver with no immediate retirement plans, was invited by reunion coordinator Vince Sellen.

“Vince stopped by my house,” Paul said, “and asked me to stop by if I had a chance.”

Paul was eager to see the mentors that helped shape his future, and shared in a briskly-paced couple hours of reminiscing.

“You have to hand it to Vince,” said Maureen Harlan, a La Conner alum who returned to serve her alma mater variously as a teacher, counselor and principal. “Without him organizing it, this probably wouldn’t happen.”

Harlan squeezed in the luncheon before heading off to a meeting in Shelter Bay. As a reward for her hectic schedule, she is a 2018 La Conner Rotary Club Paul Harris Fellow recipient for exceptional public service.

Sellen said the retirees have met four or five times over the last couple years. They gathered six months ago at the Farmhouse Inn and book the Pub for summer get-togethers.

Last year, in part wary of July congestion on First Street, former athletic director Glenn Springer and science teacher Ralph Dalseg arrived by boat.

“We might need to meet in Seattle where the parking is easier,” quipped Norm Hoffman, who came to La Conner in 1975 as a social studies student teacher under Sellen.

Hoffman would eventually rise to the superintendency, succeeded by Tim Bruce, another of Wednesday’s attendees and for whom the school’s performing arts center is named.

Sellen and Hoffman encouraged La Conner students to be active in the community. Sellen, who served on the Town Council and once came within a whisker of being named to fill a vacancy in the state legislature, offered students credit for volunteering on political campaigns. Hoffman sponsored formation of a local Key Club chapter, a student service organization affiliated with Kiwanis International.

They and their colleagues have kept tabs as those ex-students – like Paul – have literally and figuratively carved out careers of their own.

Sellen and Kathy Shoop, who taught English, specifically mentioned Ryan Booth and Mike Cox. Booth is a doctoral student and teaching assistant at Washington State University, specializing in Native American history. Cox is the Gifted Education teacher at Humphreys County School District in Mississippi.

Sellen said he once surprised Cox with a visit to his classroom. Shoop noted that Cox, like the character Steve Grenowski in the acclaimed film “The Mighty Pawns,” has introduced chess to students at the rural campus.

For Jacques Brunisholz, who grew up in Switzerland, the pieces – like those on a chessboard – have come together quite nicely in La Conner.

Yet it almost didn’t happen.

Brunisholz was set on teaching in southwest Washington until he and wife Barbara saw firsthand the devastation caused by the May 18, 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens.

Fortunately, they avoided checkmate. La Conner had an opening for a foreign language teacher and tennis coach.

Teaching Spanish was no problem for Brunisholz. Tennis was another story.

“We didn’t have sports in school,” said Brunisholz, now a La Conner Town Council member, alluding to the European club sports format with which he was familiar.

But, like his students, Brunisholz proved a quick study. His one misstep was to schedule a match on what ended up being that year’s senior skip day – another concept then foreign to Brunisholz.

Seated next to Brunisholz on Wednesday was Ken Winkes, the principal for whom he worked during much of his tenure at La Conner High. Winkes showed he is winning the battle against Father Time by wearing a well-fitting vintage La Conner Braves tee-shirt, his beard still shaded more red than gray.

In retirement, Winkes has won a wide following as a magazine columnist and radio host. That comes as little surprise to La Conner readers who remember the thoughtful op-ed pieces he penned for the old Channel Town Press.

Before standardized testing engulfed public schools, Winkes championed in print the concept that teachers shouldn’t try to overload students with information. The better approach, he wrote, is to whet their interests just enough to encourage them to want to learn more.

Winkes and the La Conner Schools retirees showed on Wednesday they’ve certainly done their part to model the virtues of lifelong learning.