The Final Bell

The Final Bell

By Mark Leitheiser

In the early fall of 1987, a school bell rang, signaling the beginning of a new school district.

The towns of Gibbon, Fairfax and Winthrop followed the growing trend of rural Minnesota school districts, joining together to create the GFW School District. Like other alphabet soup districts in the state, this educational marriage offered a fresh start for the students from each community.

That school bell also announced a fresh start for a new staff member, a hayseed from up north named Leitheiser. Armed with the ignorance of youth and three years’ teaching experience in North Dakota, Yours truly boarded the GFW train of education for what would turn out to be a long and rewarding ride.

Which is odd, if you want to know the truth. For starters, I had no idea Gibbon or Fairfax or Winthrop even existed. I couldn’t have found them on a map. Having never visited this part of the state, I didn’t know a single person and I had no intention of staying.

“What’s it like down there?” my father asked me when I returned from my interview. “It’s nothing but cornfields and gravel roads,” was my assessment. It was my intention to get a year or two of experience down here and head north to make a career of it. Yet 35 years later, I’m still here. Dozens of administrators and legions of teachers have come and gone yet here I am, writing this column in Fairfax. What happened?

For starters, I felt welcome. Friendships grow deep and strong in the rich, black soil of southern Minnesota and it didn’t take long to feel like part of the GFW community. Cold beer, hard work and firm handshakes were as abundant as corn stalks in these communities. What more could a guy want? The siren songs of the bigger schools up north could still be heard but their voices were fading.

I suppose romance had a hand in things too. I met and married the prettiest girl in town (I know, I can’t believe it either) who also happened to be my best friend. A couple of pretty cool kids followed and as the years turned to decades, southern Minnesota felt like home. For better or for worse, I became one of you and now we share a place we call home.

With home settled, it was time to get on with my career. There are over 500 school districts in Minnesota, and I was lucky enough to land at GFW. There are always plenty of headaches for a new teacher but one area that amused me during my first year was being accused of favoring a student based on his name. This made me laugh because back then I didn’t know an Ahlbrecht from a Snicker’s bar. Today, I could guess students’ home towns with surprising accuracy based on their names. I was probably guilty of a lot of dumb things but, for the record, I was innocent of all favoritism charges.

There were other challenges, of course, but I liked GFW students from the start. They were solid, salt-of-the-earth farm kids who, generally speaking, knew the value of hard work and personal ethics. In truth, I was a student myself. Outstanding teachers such as Bill Alexander and Lowell Zellmann showed me, on a daily basis, what it meant to be a professional teacher.

For my part, I pictured myself with a booming voice that would put Moses to shame with a 200-watt smile and an extra scoop of charisma that would make me Super Teacher. Simply put: I would be all things to all students at all times. Of course, I soon realized I had none of these qualities.

What I did have was a genuine desire to teach students in a classroom where they knew they were safe and valued. When Super Teacher gave way to Mr. L, I began to find my best self in the structured order of the classroom. With the possible exception of prisons, few places on earth are more structured by time than schools and that suited me just fine. All I needed was structure and a red pen. The rest, as they say, is history.

So here I am, 35 years later, preparing for retirement. It has been a heck of a journey and I am thankful for every minute of it. Let this article serve as a “Thank You” card for all your kind words and warm wishes as I leave GFW. Even some of my most difficult students have been kind enough to show me I am still number one in their hearts although they might have used a different finger to show their appreciation.

In this spirit of appreciation, it is important to note that I am not the only GFW faculty member retiring. Maren Briard, Julie Grunke, Jean Bode and Paula Kachelmeier are retiring as well and this is a huge loss for GFW. No one has worked harder or cared more deeply for our students than these outstanding ladies. Their work, combined with my own, adds up to over 100 years of experience! You don’t replace that kind of dedication easily. If you see these ladies, please thank them for their work. They’ve earned it.

It was hard to pack 35 years’ experience into a few cardboard boxes and watch the high school shrink in my rear view mirror for the last time. I’m a lousy carpenter, an even worse mechanic and I don’t behave well on golf courses so it’s hard to say what comes next but you’ll likely see me around. This fall, some young whippersnapper will show up ready to replace me when the first bell rings and the GFW train of education will continue down the tracks but this time, without me, for in the spring of 2022, I heard the final bell.

 

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