Thursday, December 10, 2020 - Last year in Keokuk and leaving Keokuk

 Thursday, December 10, 2020 

Leaving Keokuk 

In my fifth year at Keokuk High School in 1977-1978, I knew my material, I enjoyed my teaching - and I was feeling stuck.  Almost every month still ended with tight finances.  I was about 1/3rd of the way through my specialist program in academic administration.  We thought that being a principal or assistant principal was the way to make more money.

Steve was growing as an adorable toddler.  We found out that our second child would be coming in April (if all went well).  

I did get some summer work (although not as much money as I wanted).  I became the pool supervisor at the local country club in Keokuk.  That meant supervising lifeguards, taking the water chemical reading and adjusting the chlorine, or balancing it with soda ash.  To be fair to the lifeguards I let them get their hours for college.  So, even though I was working, I wasn’t getting that much for pay - but every dollar counted.  

It was the year for the junior class to put on the Senior Class prom.  The other advisor and I worked every home football game in the concession stand and most of the home basketball games.  (To be fair, some students did work too!!).  The Junior Class leadership got to pick the theme for the prom - and it shocked some (and me) when they picked Judy Collins hit “Send in the Clowns”.  I thought that was somewhat inappropriate to imply that the senior class students were “clowns” - but it stuck.  The other advisor and I chaperoned the prom (with some parents), then the after-prom event at the local theater (Lisa Minetti’s ‘New York, New York’).  About three a.m. the official events were over, although I imagine that some went on to after prom parties (with alcohol).  The official school policy was no alcohol and thus tried to get the kids away from the drinking - and the potential for drunken students and car accidents.

Connie dropped off Steve after school some days.  A short memorable story.  I was grading papers and Steve was wandering around the classroom.  I looked up and saw him chewing something.  Well as a toddler, he could see under the desks - and he found some ABC gum (ABC - already been chewed).  It probably was harmless for him, but I made him spit it out.  

Becky came into our lives on April 3, 1978.  For Steve’s birth, the delivery room was off-limits to Dads; but for Becky’s delivery, I was welcomed into the delivery room.  Aside.  I was somehow (I still didn’t know how to say “NO”) the faculty advisor for the high school bowling club.  I had to take the club to Des Moine on the weekend before Becky was due.  (Of course, these are the days before cell phones).  After the team did their bowling, we loaded up the school van and hightailed it back to Keokuk - just in case.  (Steve had taken about 18 hours for delivery, but the second child was to come quicker).  But, no, Becky didn’t come early - and my speeding (fortunately without a speeding ticket) did get us home about half-an-hour earlier than planned.  She did come on Monday, two days later though!!! (Aside. Now that I am a woman, I miss this important process of pregnancy and giving birth).

Now, with two children, we had to work harder to keep us financially balanced.  The summer pool work brought in some funds (but I should have been a lifeguard as they got more hours!!).  

I opened my Winona State placement file, like I had when I graduated eight years earlier and went to West Grant and like I had five years earlier when I went to Keokuk.  But, this time, I was thinking I might find a beginning administrative job - assistant principal, or similar since I had been doing the course work.  I interviewed at Emmons Minnesota for a principal's job - but I doubt I was in serious consideration.  

So, I was going back for my sixth year at Keokuk High School (and I could take more classes towards that educational administration specialist degree.).

It was the first of August when I got a phone call from the Mathematics and Computer Science department chair at Winona State University.  Would I be interested in a one-year teaching position at Winona State?  (Reading between the lines, they had two people on a sabbatical and had been searching for a while and hadn’t come up with any viable candidates - and with classes starting in about three years, they needed somebody to teach!!)

Would I be interested?  Would I be interested?  It took some constraint on my part not to shout YES, YES, YES!!!  Wow, I was going to be a college teacher!!  

(Spiritual).  Psalm 37:3-5 says

“Trust in the Lord and do good;

Live in the land and [a]cultivate faithfulness.

Delight yourself in the Lord;

And He will give you the desires of your heart.  ((<--- YES!!!))

 

Commit your way to the Lord,

Trust also in Him, and He will do it.”

For quite some time, the desires of my heart were to teach on the college level - and here it was!!!  God is good!!

But …

I went to the Keokuk Schools Superintendent the next day and told him I’d be leaving to go teach college math.  

Well, that wasn’t the case!!

He reminded me that II had signed a contract with the school district to teach math in Keokuk for the 1978-1979 school year.  And, he wasn’t going to let me out of that contract.

He did say that he would put an ad in the Keokuk newspaper (not the Des Moines Register) just to see.  

WELL - God delivered.  In about three days, the superintendent found a very qualified replacement to teach math.  We listed the house for sale and sold it for TWICE what we had bought it for (it was $10,000, now $20,000).  We had a garage sale and sold all but two items.  About an hour after the sale was over, a man knocked at the door and asked if we sold the two items.  So, yes, everything sold at the garage sale.  

Sight unseen, we bought a three-bedroom house in Winona, Minnesota - and within two weeks of getting that first phone call, we were gone!!  GOD really did deliver the desires of my heart.  

Next week - a little look at some college, lessons learned.

Tomorrow, LOVE WINS

Saturday Story

SundayFunday

And, LOVE DOES WIN

Hugs!!

Karen