Columbus Elementary School third-grade teacher Renee White works with students Sekaye Gaudet, left, and Connor Robinson, right, who are using specially shaped fractions bars.
Marcus Larson/News-Register

The 11 people who retired this year from the McMinnville School District represent the broad range of people who devote their lives to public education: those who want a self-contained classroom of young students to those who specialize in a certain subject for high schoolers; from those who’ve stayed in one building to those who’ve worked in several schools; from people who knew from childhood that they would be teachers to those who started out in other professions.

What do they have in common? A desire to help shape young lives and bring out the best in future citizens.

“If you’re called to teaching, it’s pretty cool,” said retiree David Sewall. “Most teachers have that irresistible call.

“So much is expected of them — working weekends, picking up costs our of their own pocket — that it’s a recipe for burnout. But they are called to do it. So if you see a teacher, you need to say thank you.”

Sewall and two other retires are profiled here. The whole list includes:

• James Barks, a McMinnville native who taught math at the high school.

• Cindy Dale, who received her bachelor’s degree from California State University and taught middle school in California before coming to Wascher Elementary in 1993.

• Cathie Johnson, who holds a bachelor’s degree in art from Western Washington State University and teaching credentials from Oregon State University. She substituted in the district for four years, then became a high school special education teacher in 1993.

• Shane Kimura, who has bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Linfield. He substituted in Hawaii for a year, then returned to McMinnville in 1979 to teach P.E. and third grade at Cook Elementary, then at Wascher.

• Toni Kling, who holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Linfield College. She joined the district in 1980. She substituted for a year, taught third grade at Adams Elementary for 11 years, then became a middle school core teacher, most recently at Duniway Middle School.

• Donna Peters, who has been an educational assistant at Wascher Elementary since 1980.

• James Ray, who holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Linfield College. Ray joined the district in 1979 and taught fourth grade at Columbus, P.E. at Wascher, then math and P.E. at first the middle school and then the high school. This year, he was instrumental in helping open the Engineering and Aerospace Science Academy.

• David Sewall, one of five teachers honored this spring by the McMinnville Rotary Club, along with Scott Johnson of Grandhaven Elementary, Tara Romero of Newby Elementary, Carissa DeYoung of Wascher Elementary and Ryan Chambers of Duniway Middle School.

• Thomas Sharpe, who earned his bachelor’s degree at Ohio State and his teaching certificate at Oregon State. He was a teaching assistant and landscape crew member in the Salem-Keiser School District before coming to Patton Middle School to teach industrial arts in 1994.

• Renee White, who is retiring from a third-grade position at Columbus Elementary.

• Bruce Waltz, who joined the district in 1987 as principal of Columbus Elementary, moved to the new Columbus and retired from Memorial Elementary. After earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Oregon, he taught in Redmond and Baker, then served as a principal in Silverton, before coming to McMinnville.

Teaching bug bit at Linfield

Renee White came to Linfield College to pursue a degree in home economics, thinking she would get a job in the clothing industry.

But when she sat down and evaluated her goals, she realized she wanted to do something that would help people. So she switched her major to education.

She graduated half a year early so she could take a long-term substitute job in the Independence School District. She went on to teach home ec and art in Hillsboro before returning to McMinnville to teach at the junior high, now the middle school.

“We wanted to come to McMinnville,” she said. “It’s a great community. It has a good educational system, and there’s the Linfield atmosphere.”

She and her husband, Tom White, also were looking for the right place to raise their children.

“McMinnville was a good place for that,” she said. “Perfect.”

Their daughter and son graduated from McMinnville High School. Carissa went on to Linfield to study theater and is now working as a teaching assistant in the David Douglas School District. Evan, an Oregon State University graduate, is working as an industrial engineer at Boeing.

Tom White, also a Linfield graduate, retired six years ago from teaching social studies and P.E. in Willamina.

“He’s thrilled we’ll both be retired,” White said. “It will be nice to have some family time, and time for traveling. And time to get to my art and home ec things I’ve put on hold.”

One trip the Whites have been anticipating for years will come off this fall — a history and autumn leaf tour of New England, led by former McMinnville teachers Chuck and Loraine Biederman.

White enjoyed teaching home ec to middle level girls and boys. Students were enthusiastic about the subject, and were learning important skills they could use throughout their lives — skills like cooking, consumer awareness, child and family development.

In 1994, White went back to school to obtain an elementary education certificate.

“Home ec programs were shifting,” she said. “It was no longer offered in middle school. I thought elementary would be enjoyable, so I switched.”

She said she has enjoyed the challenge of teaching the broad range of subjects covered in third and fourth grades.
“I’ve learned so much,” she said. “I enjoy the learning, thinking and changing.”

Each year has brought new learning experiences for her, in fact.

This year, for instance, she has learned the district’s new writing curriculum. She also learned new computer skills as she worked with her third-graders, who used their own miniature laptops to create PowerPoint presentations.

The PowerPoint experience was a particularly good one, White said. Each student was able to accomplish something he or she could be proud of. And students who were capable of doing more could stretch themselves.

“I was really proud of all my kids today,” she said after listening to their presentations.

White liked teaching middle-schoolers, but has enjoyed younger kids, too.

“They are excited about learning,” she said. “And they think their teacher’s pretty neat.”

This reluctant retiree not one to sit around

Jim Barks probably wouldn’t have become a math teacher if it hadn’t been for his own teachers at McMinnville High School.
Denny Wright, for instance, helped Barks realize that he was capable in math. “He was one of the best math teachers I ever had, at any level,” Barks said of Wright, now retired but still a good friend.

Another key teacher was Col. Bob Browning, who patiently explained geometry. Browning also encouraged Barks to get up in front of the class and show fellow students how he solved some tough geometry problems — his first teaching experience.

Barks went on to graduate from Mac High in 1968. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Portland, then spent seven years teaching at Central Catholic, a private boys school in Portland.

Looking for a chance to return to McMinnville, he took a math teaching job at the junior high school in 1979.

When McMinnville reconfigured its grade levels and ninth-graders moved to the high school, so did Barks. “I was excited to come back,” he said.

He said it was a chance to repay, in a way, Wright, Browning and all the other teachers who had put so much effort into getting him through McMinnville schools.

“Back then, let’s say I enjoyed school more than I should have,” he recalled. “It was not as important to me to get good grades.”

The first time he handled a class on his own was when he was student teaching at Marshall High School in Portland. It was the first day of his practicum, but his mentor teacher was out sick, so he was on his own.

Barks said he has enjoyed working with student teachers over the years. For one thing, they’ve helped him keep up with the latest teaching practices.

However, he wouldn’t want to sit by while a student teacher took over his whole class.

“I love getting up in front of students,” he said. “I have certain ways of sharing things with them, certain concepts I want to be the one to teach.”

A math teacher must know the subject, but also be able to give students a chance to come to understand it themselves.

“I’m good at taking complex concepts and breaking them into small pieces students can understand,” Barks said. “That has a little to do with patience, too.”

Math is an intimidating subject for some students, who look at it as if it were a foreign language. But he sees math as a critical skill — one that’s about much more than numbers and symbols.

“Math is about problem-solving and selecting the right tools,” he said. “If you don’t get anything out of math but learning to problem-solve, well, that’s a lot.

“Later in life, it’s going to help you quickly assess a situation and decide what to do. Math gives you logical thinking skills that take over in a stressful situation.”

Throughout his career, Barks has coached track and helped coach football. Don Mabee and Ben Schaad, were among mentors in his playing and coaching.

He grew up playing baseball, but switched to track in high school after he realized he could throw the discus.
“And because in track, you’re never on the bench,” he said. “Everyone gets to compete.”

One reason he loves coaching, he said, is seeing students succeed. “If you can get a kid to do something he didn’t think he could do, that’s the greatest thing,” he said.

Whether it’s on the track or in the classroom, Barks loves working with teens.

“I have fun with the kids,” he said. “I love their attitudes, their comments, how they interact with each other and with adults.”

Deep down, students are the same now as they were when he started teaching in the 1970s. “If you took away their iPods and cell phones, kids are kids,” he said.

One other piece of technology has become common in the math room: the electronic calculator.

Personal calculators didn’t even exist when he started teaching. Now, they are inexpensive and pervasive.

That’s not a bad thing, Barks said. “A calculator can give kids quick gratification, show them they know what they’re doing,” he said.

At the high school level, he said, math is more about knowing and applying processes than about knowing two plus two. Calculators make it easy to reinforce the concepts.

At the same time, Barks said, he doesn’t insist that his students use technology. “I teach both doing calculations by hand — students call that ‘the old way’ — and on calculators,” he said.

After 37 years as a teacher and coach, Barks still enjoys working with kids. And he hopes to continue with that, initially be coaching track in some capacity next spring.

Barks hasn’t been counting the days until his retirement. Retiring is the right decision, he said, but it’s one he found difficult to make.

“I love teaching,” he said. “I’ve done it so long.”

He’s also the father of a teacher — Tara Romero of Newby Elementary. His other daughter, Heather West, is a hairstylist.
“It’s hard to imagine August or September, how I’ll feel then,” he said. “I’ll probably struggle.”

Next year, Barks plans to work at Fisher Implements. He’s worked at the company during the summer for the past 27 years.
His wife, Barbara, works as controller at Sokol Blosser Winery. That means he has to keep working, too, he joked.

“I have to keep busy,” he said. “I’m not someone who can sit around and do nothing.”

Scientist-turned-teacher reflects on his career

Teaching is David Sewall’s second profession.

Before he turned to the classroom, he was a researcher for the Environmental Protection Agency. The Oregon State University graduate worked as an entomologist and biochemist, studying the effect of pesticides on beneficial insects.

After six years of research, he decided to look at another career. He said he realized he had grown as much as he could in his field.

“Change is a core thing for me,” Sewall said. “Growth requires change.”

His first idea was to enter a Ph.D. program, but he realized it wasn’t the right decision for someone who was nearly 40, with two small children to support. Besides, he had figured out that he wanted to do something that would put him into close contact with other people, and research didn’t do that.

“I’m a combination of introvert and extrovert,” he said. “I was very active in my church, and I wanted something meaningful, something where I could make a difference.”

He also was influenced by a book, “Hinds’ Feet on High Places,” which he describes as a Christian allegory with a message about surrendering oneself to change.

Teaching was the answer, he decided.

It would make a difference, put him into contact with people and allow him to use his background in science. It also would tap into his empathy for students who wrestle with chemistry.

“I always had to struggle for an A, so I understand the need to break things down into small steps and keep repeating,” he said.

Sewall went back to school for his teaching credentials and did his practicum right about the time that Measure 5 restructured Oregon school funding and forced many districts to lay off teachers. “But I knew I was supposed to do this,” he said, “and one door after another opened for me.”

One of those doors was at the front of Mac High. He took a course taught by MHS teacher Dale Depweg, which led him to meet then-principal Tom Chapman. And Chapman hired him for a science position.

He and his wife, Cathy, put their house in Corvallis on the market and it sold immediately; they easily found a McMinnville home to buy.

It turned out to be a great place to raise their children.

Daughter Lauren, who graduated from Mac High last year, is now is working and taking classes at Chemeketa Community College. Son Aaron, a 2002 graduate, is finishing his master’s degree and teaching at a language institute at the University of Tours in France.

“It was like I was supposed to be here, he said. “McMinnville was waiting for me. It was like an answer to a prayer.”

In retirement, Sewall plans to fish more, spend more time with his family and not think about school at all.

“I’m taking a year’s sabbatical from all that — a year to pray and to just shut up and listen,” he said. “I’m sure where I’m supposed to go next will be made clear to me.”

He said he may end up being a teacher again in some capacity. Or a fisherman. Or a farmer. Or someone who just takes people out on his boat for fun.

“I’m just really fortunate I can make the change,” he said, referring to his decision to retire. “I love teaching, but it’s OK to change.”

Sewall said his job at Mac High has been greatly rewarding, thanks to his students and his colleagues. Members of the science department are close friends who eat lunch together and help one another out.

“No one hesitates to ask or to give,” he said. “It’s a tough job. You need that support of your colleagues.”
He also praised Mac High as a whole.

“There are outstanding opportunities for students here, if they are willing to take advantage of them,” he said. “I tell students they have to open the door for themselves. Teachers can’t pry them open.”

Sewall figures he’s taught about 2,400 students at Mac High.

He focused on teaching concepts in depth, rather than teaching a large number of concepts. That way, he said, students could learn problem-solving strategies that they could generalize to other subjects, and to life, rather than just memorizing formulas.

“I feel I have made a difference and touched many lives,” he said. “Hopefully I’ve touched them. You just don’t know ... it’s like sowing seeds in a field, then leaving and not seeing what grows.”

Sometimes, though, the results of his work are obvious.

“When they get it — when you see that cosmic light come thought and they say, ‘Oh, that’s why...’ or ‘Oh, I get what you’re saying...’ — then you know you’ve helped someone see the world in a bigger way,” Sewall said. “That’s one of the intrinsic rewards of working with kids.”

“Teaching is so hard. But when you get that breakthrough with kids, there’s nothing sweeter.”

Starla Pointer, who is convinced everyone has an interesting story to tell, has been writing the weekly “Stopping By” column since 1996. She’s always looking for suggestions. Contact her at 503-883-6263 or spointer@newsregister.com.