By Kaitlin Zieser
High school. You sit in classes all day long. You spend your time balancing homework, friends, jobs, and all of your extracurricular activities. And you have to do it for four years! There are people in our school who have made it through this time in their lives- teachers. Have you ever wondered what your teachers were like when they were teenagers?

Big Hair and Cruising Ruled

Science teacher Heather Allen graduated as one of 110 students in the class of 1995 from Washington High School in Cherokee, IA. In high school, her favorite classes were science classes, but she did not have all of the options that we have for science classes. Mrs. Allen said that her school did not offer many electives for core classes. However, Mrs. Allen made up for that in extracurricular activities. She was involved in show choir, speech, debate, Honors Society, yearbook, and Junior Engineering Technical Society. These activities and working on the farm occupied most of Mrs. Allen’s free time and weekends.

When Mrs. Allen did have free time with her friends, they enjoyed going to movies and dances and cruising the loop. “You would cruise the main highway in a car with your friends from the north end of town to the south end of town around the loop. And you would do that for hours. It was stupid,” Mrs. Allen said.

The popular style in her high school was sheer sleeves, silk shirts, neon, and big hair. Style is not the only thing that has changed though.

When Mrs. Allen was in high school they did some things a bit differently. They didn’t have Google; they had to go look through all kinds of books in the library for research. Every Friday of a game, there would be a pep rally. Honor Society was a very big deal, and when you ate lunch, ketchup counted as your vegetable. We rely too much on technology now, however Mrs. Allen believes that we have more questions than they did, and they’re good questions.

Rule Follower and Aspiring Actress

English teacher Leigh Ann Erickson graduated as one of 379 students in Wyoming Valley West, Plymouth, Pa. class of 2000. In high school, Mrs. Erikson describes herself as being the rule follower, which may be due to the fact that her parents were teachers in her school.

Her favorite subject was English, and she had a foot in each of her school’s cliques. Mrs. Erickson was involved in theatre, basketball, and cross country, and between rehearsals and competitions she was always busy. When she wasn’t in school or at practices, Mrs. Erickson worked at a bagel shop and a clothing store, as well as made time for her friends.

Dressed like they had come out of the movie Clueless, they enjoyed walking around the mall and driving around town. One of her favorite memories from high school was staying the night in the Penn State dorms during state history day competitions. She also really enjoyed her sophomore year prom-like dance; they wore long dresses for all of their dances.

With school having changed so much, Mrs. Erickson doesn’t particularly like the growing importance and focus on standardized testing. However she really likes all of the opportunities we have to be involved and try new things. Her one piece of advice to high schoolers is: “Don’t let fear of failure stop you from doing what you want to do. You miss out on opportunities, experiences, and relationships if you are too afraid to give it a shot,” she said.

Band Geek by Day, Four Sport Athlete by Night

Assistant Principal and athletic director Matt Thede was one of 61 kids in Gladbrook-Reinbeck (near Cedar Falls, IA) class of 1997. He was an extrovert, who enjoyed hanging with his friends, playing sports, and being outside in nature. He played the trumpet in the high school band and jazz band, was class vice president and involved in student council, ran track, and played baseball, football, basketball, and golf. His favorite subjects in school were math and biology.

When he wasn’t at school, practice or working as a meat cutter at a local grocery store, you could find Mr. Thede fishing, hunting, riding four-wheelers, and camping with his friends. If you were to go camping and run into Mr. Thede and his friends as high schoolers, you would find them listening to country, R&B, and rock, and they would be sticking out with their bright colors, leg warmers, rolled jeans, and turtlenecks.

The biggest things Mr. Thede learned in high school were the power forgiveness really does have, and outlook on life. Things that you think are important now, you will later find are not as important as you thought they were.

If Mr. Thede could change one thing about schools now he would like to see an increasing amount of responsibility as you get older. “I would like to see kids growing up and taking responsibility and being accountable for their actions,” Thede said.

Popular among Ladies with Business Skills

Social Studies teacher Ed Timm was a member of 81 kids in Tipton High School class of 1981.

He lived on a farm and did farm work whenever he wasn’t participating in school, work, or sports. In fact that is one of the reasons Mr. Timm loved being so involved in sports. He participated in football, basketball, baseball, track, speech, and youth group.

In his sophomore year, Mr. Timm and two of his friends started their own roofing business that they operated during the summer.

His high school was a bit different than MVHS in the fact that they had farming classes and they also had a 40 minute lunch period that they treated like recess. Mr. Timm enjoyed hanging out with his friends during that time, and one of the most popular things to play was cards. They also had a unique teacher who gave the students an interesting time with his “Mr. Miller quotes” and throwing of objects at sleeping students.

Another unique thing that Tipton had was a sophomore girl that Mr. Timm, as a senior, really liked, and they dated. We now know her as the high school secretary Stephanie Timm.

Thinking back on school, Mr. Timm is glad that you can no longer physically punish students. He also says that “We don’t hold kids accountable. We don’t really give them an opportunity to fail enough. Everyone should fail every once in awhile so you learn how to deal with it.” He believes that kids haven’t changed. We still want all the same things, and maybe its just the way we accomplish those things that has changed.

A Serious Student with a Passion for Corduroy

Mrs. Young was involved in choir, jazz choir, orchestra (which was her most enjoyable class), drama, plays, and student council as a secretary. Because of the large class sizes in her school the athletic teams only allowed so many players, and if you weren’t part of the top performers you would be cut. However Mrs. Young’s senior year they started a girls soccer team, which ended up being a success, and Mrs. Young took part in the new team.

In school, Mrs. Young’s favorite subject was not math, the subject she teaches. She actually enjoyed English and science more.

The school style was a preppy style. They wore collared shirts, bell bottoms, white Adidas shoes, Levi’s, and corduroys. “I had corduroys in every color,” she said.

When Mrs. Young wasn’t involved in school activities she worked as a waitress and summer secretary at a psychiatrist office. She loved to hang out with friends and her youth group, and go to drive-ins, sometimes sneaking people in under blankets in the back seat.

Her favorite memory, though, was at homecoming one year. Her school had a wall that people liked to paint on, and one night Mrs. Young and her friends took their turn getting to make their mark on the school.

“If I could do something over again, I would say to not take myself so seriously. I would recommend that you be more conscious of those around you. That you would get to know them and really care and value them.”

High school is a time that we all have to go through. In the end we gain knowledge, experiences, and stories. Even though we students are on our way heading out of the craziness of high school, our teachers will still be serving their term much longer than four years.