By Andru McCracken

Valemount’s kindergarten teacher Kathy Gates-Grogan is retiring. She began her teaching career in 1973, thirty three school years ago and has been a positive influence on kids since then.

Her reasons for retiring are simple: she wants to go out on a high.

“It’s about time. I want to go out and be positive,” she said. “I want to have something left for my own grandchildren.”

Groovy beginnings

It was 1973 when Kathy finished her degree at the University of British Columbia and the world lay at her feet.

Back then, things were different in the profession, freshly graduated teachers needn’t travel the province looking for work. Schools came looking for them.

A special program being run out of Prince George attracted her, and the principal, a woman, and the first woman principal that Kathy knew of, interviewed her personally.

She had a friend who had been to Prince George and said she would like it.

The school sent her a telegram (still on file at the School District Office). She had 24 hours to respond to the opportunity. “It was so cool,” she said.

She started teaching grades 5 and 6 and worked in a space that held four classes with no walls between them.

Instead, they had ‘pods’ - one large open space - scheduled so that quiet and loud activities wouldn’t conflict.

“It was cutting edge at the time,” she said.

Clearly she made some close connections with others on the bleeding edge of education, because 10 of the teachers she first taught with visited for her retirement party.

Groovier

Later rural life beckoned.

“When John (Grogan) and I hooked up we thought we really didn’t want to be in the city,” she said.

Kathy had friends living in Valemount who had moved here from Banff where she was born and raised.

“I came to visit them and I thought it was really neat,” she said.

It was still in School District 57, but here, the Okanagan was just three hours away.

“You want to go to Valemount?”

There was some concern whether Kathy Gates-Grogan knew what she was doing. Stories abounded of a music teacher who had been hired in Valemount and came by train. As the train pulled into town, the story goes, the music teacher took one look around and got back on the train.

Her bosses asked her to go see the school.

When she did, she met the movers and shakers in the school at the time.

“I came out and met Irma Brownlee, Joan Nordli, and Gale Tuggle to name a few.

They moved to town and settled by the railroad tracks.

“My only stipulation was that I didn’t want an outhouse,” she said.

“We were only going to be here 5 years… of course I got pregnant.”

She and John felt this was going to be a good place to raise kids. A lot of her colleagues were having kids at the same time.

People thought the spiking birthrate might have been due to something in the water, but Kathy figured it was the train, waking up young couples as it ambled past.

Deep learning

The students that she learned the most from were Nicola and Kirk, two children with special challenges.

“I learned so much from those kids,” she said.

“With the support I had from the community and the support from Prince George we learned so much. There was a speech therapist and the occupational therapist.

Like all teachers, each year she would get a new group of students who would become hers.

“Every year, they were my kids. Then all of the sudden June comes and they’re gone,” she said.

Later in her career, Kathy would teach the children of her early students.

A good place to teach

Kathy said that Valemount Elementary School is a great place to teach, and considering the number of staff they currently have, the volunteerism is incredible.

“For a small school, the amount of time that teachers put in and the activities we have for kids, it’s really great. Teachers give a lot of their free time,” she said.

For the love of it

As for her legacy, Kathy hopes she has imparted a real love of learning.

“Don’t give up, just keep trying and make it fun,” she said. She hopes that her students never lose their sense of wonder.