Eastern Adams County's Only Independent Voice Since 1887
Eastern Adams County's Only Independent Voice Since 1887
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When graduation comes this June, teachers everywhere will be saying goodbye to a class of students. For many teachers, this means saying goodbye to children they have worked with over the course of the year. But for Lind-Ritzville Schools' band teacher Jennifer York, this means saying goodbye to a senior class full of students she has taught for 13 years. York teaches band to students in grades 5-12 in both Lind and Ritzville. Before the merger of the schools, she taught...
Teaching wasn't always in the cards for Lind Elementary fourth grade teacher Jody Terris. In fact, after graduating from Riverside High School north of Spokane, Terris attended Eastern Washington University to major in hotel management. "It wasn't for me," Terris said. "I don't really know why I did that." Terris came to the Lind-Ritzville area when her husband, Kevin, accepted the principal job at Lind-Ritzville High School. Two weeks later, she was offered a job teaching...
In The Journal's Teacher Profile Series, we have met teachers who always wanted to teach. We also met teachers who needed to figure it out in college. Today, we meet Lind-Ritzville High School ag teacher Andy Williams, a teacher who wanted to be a teacher early on, only to change his mind in college. It wasn't until after college that he realized his first calling was his true calling. "I wanted to be a teacher early on," Williams said. "But I didn't love taking all the...
Carley Stanford is in her first full year as a teacher at the Ritzville Grade School, however, she isn't a new face to students and parents. Before future teachers graduate college, they have to student-teach at a school. It's not common for a teacher to then get a job at that same school. However, that is exactly what Stanford did. She started student teaching at RGS in September of 2018 and finished in January 2019. She was immediately hired to finish the school year and...
Some people get an idea of what they want to be when they grow up while they are in high school. Some people go to college to figure that out. Then, there are people like Morgan Hunt who have it all figured out by the time they are three years old. "I knew I wanted to be a teacher when I was three," Hunt said. "While other children were playing with barbies, I was playing school." By the time she was in high school, she told her mom that her dream job was to be an elementary...
Kevin Terris has just started his second year as principal of Lind-Ritzville High School, but he has been in education for longer than that. Much longer. "This is my 24th year in public education," Terris said. Terris started his career as a social studies and language arts teacher at the high school level. After about a decade of that, he became an athletic director and assistant principal. Then, 14 years later, he was hired by LRHS to be its new principal. A long career in e...
Ask Lind-Ritzville High School family and consumer science teacher Donna Koch to describe her job and she will respond with one sentence. "It's all about preparing kids for life," Koch said. She says she's often asked what family and consumer science is. "It used to be called home ec," Koch said. "When I tell people I teach family and consumer science, people are like, 'what are you talking about?' But if I reference home ec, people understand." But whatever the name might be,...
A new Washtucna teacher hopes her experience with homlessness will help her in dealing with students who are facing that, and other difficulties. Lisa Landstrom, who already has seven years of teaching experience, decided she needed a change in her life and left her teaching job in the Spokane area to come teach in Washtucna. She will teach fourth and fifth grades. Landstrom grew up on the Oregon Coast in Astoria, where she graduated from Lewis and Clark Christian Academy, a small private Christian high school. “I got a r...
The Journal's teacher profile series has spoken to several teachers who came to east Adams County from a larger area in seek of a smaller community to call home. The opposite can be said for new Lind-Ritzville High School social studies teacher Bryce Court. "My last town didn't have any fast food restaurants," Court said smiling. Court grew up in Winthrop, Washington, which has a population of 394. He experienced larger cities in college before beginning his teaching career...
Growing up, Joel Boutelle didn’t want to be a teacher; he wanted to be a marine biologist. After 38 years as a teacher though, Boutelle will tell you things worked out pretty well. Boutelle, who is starting his first year as a teacher at Washtucna, spent 36 years teaching in Arizona before spending last year at Moses Lake. In Arizona, he taught in schools with over 2,000 students and always had at least 30 students in his class room. In Washtucna, his smallest class size is four. Family brought Boutelle to Washington from A...
With the first day of school behind them, teachers everywhere, new and returning alike, are settling in to the new school year. One such teacher is Washtucna high school and middle school English teacher Lacii Rundquist, who is starting her first year as a teacher. Rundquist was born in Benton City and moved to Washtucna while she was in high school. Her journey to her teaching job is perhaps a bit unusual. She hopes to be able to use her background to help students who may...
Greg Whitmore has several jobs at the Lind-Ritzville Schools co-op. Some of them are pretty high-profile, like head football coach and athletic director. However, if you ask him, Whitmore will make sure you know that he's a teacher, first and foremost. While he has taught several classes over the years that connect well with his jobs in athletics, such as weight training and physical education, he says his main passion is another class; one where he wants to reach athletes...
Zachary Swanger knows a little something about the first day of school. He attended school here in the area. Directly after graduating high school, he attended college. This September will be the first time he has not attended school since his childhood, but his first-day streak will continue. Only now, his first day of school will be as a teacher. "I can't wait," Swanger said. "It's a nervous excitement." Swanger is a new English teacher at Lind-Ritzville High School. This sc...
After four years of serving as the principal of Lind-Ritzville Middle School and Lind Elementary School, Cindy Deska will be moving to the Ritzville Grade School. She says she is excited to return to the age group with which she has spent most of her career working. "For the most part, my experience has all been at elementary. So I'm excited to get back to just elementary," Deska said. "I am a very strong believer that we have to address students as early as we can. And so get...
When the Lind-Ritzville High School closed for construction, it affected more people than just the students and teachers at the high school. It affected everyone at all the schools in the co-op, including Lind-Ritzville Middle School teacher Christina Heater. With LRHS closed, the high school moved for one year to the LRMS building in Lind. This meant there was less space for middle school classes, so the co-op had to get creative. Which meant Heater took some kids back to...
The first day of school can be stressful for anyone, especially for someone starting at a new school. Meeting new people and learning a lot of new names can add to the already present stress of adjusting to a new school routine. When Lind Elementary School and Lind-Ritzville Middle School students go to school this fall, they won't be the only ones going through the new school experience. Principal Darrell Lembcke will be also having his own first day of school. Lembcke–who w...
Six years ago, teacher Bob Moore thought he worked in a "small" elementary school. The Ritzville native worked at Mona Elementary School in Mona, Utah. Mona Elementary School serves around 250 students, so "small" may seem like an appropriate description to most. But then Moore moved back home to Ritzville and took a job at the Benge School. The Benge School finished the 2018-19 school year with 12 students. Moore has been a teacher for 17 years. Moore says he had other plans...
Thomas Pulliam is more than just a high school math teacher. While he is a Lind-Ritzville High School math teacher, he's also the superintendent of the Benge School District, a teacher in the online portion of the Western Aerospace Scholars program, a teacher during the summer residency portion of the WAS program and the secretary for the Benge Volunteer Fire Department. This may sound like a lot of work, but Pulliam says it's simpler than it sounds. "I just stay organized,"...