This picture captured a moment one year before I went back to school to become a teacher. ISU and studying German and English were far from my mind at this point.My dad served in a bishopric in Malad First Ward, and at his left is Bishop Griffiths. My parents owned a cabin in Island Park, and at least once and even twice during the winter, we made a trip northward to clean the roof that would have at least two or three feet of snow.
This particular year, my dad had the group of young men from First Ward come along. They brought sleeping bags, and two or three additional adults brought trailers with snowmobiles. The trip now had a dual purpose: work and play.
On a bad stretch of weather, we would find a layer of frost on everything inside the cabin, and only building a fire would eliminate that, although it made for a dampness that was also miserable.
During the summer, we kept a good stack of logs outside for use during winter visits.
This particular one found great weather, unlike the week when temperatures never rose above 20 below zero. Riding on a snow machine was dangerous, even with a full face helmet. The wind factor made things even colder on the back of a sled traveling 40 or fifty miles per hour, so we made frequent stops to feel our faces with our hands to avoid frostbite. And we had bandannas over our faces for protection.
Dad loved this cabin. It was a dream he always had, and from my earliest memory, I recall him saying that he wanted a situation where he could sit and smell the pines.
The cabin was near a place that locals called Strawberry. We thought it was strange, until we noticed wild strawberry plants. The berries were only the size of the tip of a person's finger, but they were very sweet. When I was about to finish my degree in early spring of 1979, a former professor played some games with me and revoked a request I made for acceptance of a Shakespeare class.
ISU only taught the class once every three years or so, and since I took a class that did several works by Shakespeare, I submitted a petition to the Dean of Liberal Arts that the class I took be accepted in lieu of waiting another year or two before ISU offered it. The Dean accepted it.
Then a professor assumed the role of Assistant Dean. She was an instructor I didn't care much for because of a class I took. I was unfortunate enough to have her stepson and daughter in classes at Highland High while I taught there. My cooperating teacher did not allow me to see the grades, and he did penalized the stepson, who didn't turn in a good deal of work.
I guess the young man thought I was an opportunity, since I also knew his parents as instructors of the English Department. Whatever that teacher did, and the instructor was incompetent and vindictive, it hurt me politically for years to come in the English Department.
I began with the cancellation of my petition I had made at least a year before graduation.
Since it would have been another year or two before the class was available, they accepted another petition. I was able to take a home study course from the University of Utah. The department at the "U" was reluctant, since I was "only" an English minor, and the class was an upper division course.
Dad let Ann and me go to the cabin, and I worked on coursework for four days. I read. I typed. And we drove home before traveling to Salt Lake City to submit the work. There had only been two or three weeks for me to complete everything so that I could graduate from ISU.
It was a major problem. I had signed a contract at Malad High after student teaching there, and I had to finish. We waited a day, and then we returned to Salt Lake City to get the grades and request that paperwork be sent to ISU.
The professor University of Utah instructor told me that he couldn't give an "A" to a student who completed everything without the guidance of instructor mentor ship, but he told me he was astounded at my ability to write, to analyze, to dissect material like I did. Had I not completed the class in a week, I would have had the "A."
It was one of three "B's" I received after returning to ISU, and they were all "B+." Finishing meant that I graduated with honors in spite of the creepy politics at ISU.
A friend and instructor in the German Department referred to the ISU people as Lebanon West. The late 70's was a period of time when Lebanon became a horrific war zone with factions fighting for control. That pretty much explains my German professor's view. ISU had incredible professors, but the best ones were hippies. They didn't care about politics or becoming a Dean or Department Chair. They were there to teach.
Finishing so successfully meant that things at the "U" changed too. People in the department went from hesitation to encouragement. They wanted me to enroll in a graduate program.
I regret not doing that some days. Fighting like I did to graduate and take a job in my hometown proved to be a complicated quest: a hunt for respect, a path toward self-discovery, a trip to independence.
It was nine years before I had had enough, but working at Malad High School also helped me become successful. A friend asked me what it was like there, and I said this: "It made me hard as nails." And it did too. I knew every trick to discipline students who didn't want to be in school and dedicated themselves to causing trouble. I became creative to motivate students to succeed. I created a "German environment" within a classroom through the use of various opportunities like foreign travel, games and complex strategies.
In the mid 90's, I had the honor of becoming honored as Foreign Language Teacher of the Year. I wish my dad could have seen that. Dr. Eleanore Cervantes, a friend and favorite ISU instructor of mine, called me a miracle worker--something my dad referred to me as a couple of times. Dr. Cervantes cited the situation where I took a small class of 25 students and turned it into a full German program with over 160 in one year.
For over a decade, I taught only German at Rigby High, but then I became bored with what I was doing. When I couldn't laugh at my own jokes any more, I knew I was in trouble.
The administration allowed me to design my own English course, a cross-curricular English and History course about the Holocaust, and it became highly successful. My principal there told me that I could have taught only that course within a year after it began, and students were excited. They told me after enrolling in college that it helped them more than any other course in preparing for writing at the university level.
I wanted to keep my German classes too. Within another year, I began doing dual credit courses in addition to what I had been doing. I then taught German and English courses for ISU credit, and I worked as an adjunct for ISU.
It was a great way to finish my degree. I always said that I wanted to be like a falling star, fading away in a bright streak across the sky. My wish came true as my cancer forced my retirement, and continuing to be a miracle worker meant assuming a role of fighting for my life.
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