SAD 1 honors retirees
Staff Writer
PRESQUE ISLE – Six retiring SAD 1 employees with a combined 224 years of service to the district were recognized last Wednesday night at the SAD 1 board meeting.
• Ed Avery, a special education ed tech at Zippel Elementary School, is retiring after six years of service.
“Ed is one of the few people I know who loved playground duty,” said Zippel Principal Sharon Brown. “He would use that time to teach life skills including sharing, turn taking and even dressing. He also brought sports skills to us … nothing to do with a particular sport, but everything to do with sportsmanship and sticking with something once you started.”
In congratulating the former physical education teacher, Brown said she will fondly remember Avery walking the halls singing infectious show tunes.
“Each night as he left, he’d walk down the hall with his hands in his pocket, and he’d go by the office and wave and say, ‘So long. Have a good night girls,’” said Brown. “So Ed, we wish you, ‘So long, and good days and good nights to come.’”
• Marti Pritchard, a special education teacher at Zippel, was honored for 24 years with the district.
“Marti is a self-described ‘hippy’ and she spent days at Woodstock, but she has spent her life and career trying to live up to those ideals of the ‘60s … the idealism of peace and love and she’s brought it wherever she’s been,” said Brown. “When she was traveling – as a hippy – she fell in love with Maine and when she saw an opportunity to apply for a job in Washburn, she did. She’s also taught kindergarten and second grade at Pine Street Elementary School, the middle school, and has been with us at Zippel teaching special education.
“Marti is respectful … always … to children and adults,” she said. “She knows – better than anyone I know – how to keep her eye on the child. She meets the needs emotionally, socially, behaviorally, and is a best friend if she needs to be. She looks at the whole child and not just the academic child.”
Pritchard said it has “been a pleasure and an honor to work with this school district.”
“I say ‘work with’ because it hasn’t been ‘working for,’” she said. “It’s been a team effort and I’ve always felt supported and cared about. I’ve been very fortunate in my career to be here. Thank you very much.”
• Byron “Barney” Lockhart has been an eighth-grade English teacher at Presque Isle Middle School – and before that Skyway Middle School – for 34 years.
“Barney and his wonderful wife, Susan, moved into our neighborhood years ago and we were just delighted because we had kids at the same time,” said PIMS Principal Anne Blanchard. “Susan even did childcare for us for a while and Barney was right there with his carpentry skills helping them put together dollhouses. He’s a renaissance man … Barney can do it all.
“Barney is looked to at our school as the one who has the bottom line, the one who can ease the waters and be reasonable in any kind of moment of uncertainty … he’s the go-to man,” she said. “He’s really made his mark with his students, and if you meet any of them, they will tell you, ‘You can’t do better than Mr. Lockhart.’ His students are enamored with him, and even on his last day of teaching, students were saying, ‘Mr. Lockhart … how can he be leaving … it will never be the same without him.’”
Lockhart will continue to spend his retirement writing and has his first book in the works.
• Allen Henderson, currently a custodian at Presque Isle High School, was recognized for 35 years of service to the district.
“Allen has been with us since Sept. 15, 1975,” said Bob Gagnon, SAD 1 operations supervisor. “He was a head custodian at Gouldville and Pine Street elementary schools, and when I started working here 26 years ago, I worked for him.
“Al, who built his career at PIHS, is the type of individual that if I ask him to do anything – it doesn’t matter what it is – he’d do it,” Gagnon said. “I never heard him say ‘No.’ He never once said, ‘It’s not in my job description’ or ‘I can’t.’ He is one of the dearest friends I have and I hope his retirement is long.”
• Nelson “Nellie” Guerrette, head custodian at Pine Street Elementary School, is retiring after working in the district for 52 years.
“Nellie started working for the district one month and 17 days before I was even born,” said Gagnon. “In the time I’ve worked with him, I’ve learned a lot. He was the measuring stick for the new generation of facility managers. Nellie’s another person that if you ask him to do something, it was done … a lot of times you didn’t even have to ask him. We’re going to miss him.”
SAD 1 Superintendent Gehrig Johnson recalled that when he was hired in 1984, he made it a point to talk to the “senior persons in the district.”
“Nellie was one of those people,” Johnson said. “I remember it had impressed me because the district had just dedicated the gymnasium at Cunningham Middle School to him about the time that I got here. Many times over the years I’d make it a point to go visit him and ask him his view of the world. He’d never tell me if I didn’t ask, but when I asked, he would share with me what I was doing wrong and things I could do better.
“Nellie was always somebody who would give me good advice,” he said, “especially early on when I was in my 30s. I’ve always appreciated his suggestions and insights and we’re going to miss him.”
• Patricia Cole, PIHS English teacher, is retiring with 31 years of service under her belt.
“I’ve known Pat in many capacities over the years … first as a very friendly, supportive colleague in the English department, as a soccer mom, hockey mom, she coached the Destination Imagination team at PIHS, and took over the Directed Study English program. She’s done a wonderful job with that program,” said Eric Waddell, PIHS principal. “She’s a champion of adolescent literature and is constantly looking for just the right book for a particular student. To give you an idea of how large her shoes have become, while she’s been the only directed study English teacher here, next year there will be three.
“I’m hopeful that Pat Cole – after a summer of rest and relaxation – will toss her hat in the substitute teaching arena,” he said. “Thank you for everything.”
Cole said she has enjoyed her years with the district.
“There is no place I would rather teach or be than at Presque Isle High School,” she said, noting that until her current students graduate, she plans to volunteer or substitute teach from time to time. “At least for a couple years until all of those kiddos have graduated, I’d really like some involvement with SAD 1.”
Also at the June 9 board meeting, directors were notified of the following staff transfers – Jayne Tasker from art teacher at PIMS to district-wide school nurse; Amy Spinning from half-time pre-K and half-time kindergarten teacher at Pine Street to kindergarten teacher at Mapleton Elementary School; Angel Casavant from sixth grade at PIMS to kindergarten teacher at Pine Street; and Casey Johnson from fifth-grade teacher at Zippel to sixth grade at PIMS.
Ben Greenlaw, who is presently a physical education/health teacher at Hampden Academy, has been hired as the new assistant principal at PIHS. He will take over for Donna Lisnik who will become the new principal as Waddell has accepted a curriculum coordinator position at SAD 35 in Eliot.
In addition, directors voted to increase the price of School Nutrition Program breakfasts and lunches by 10 cents. There was no meal increase last year.
Elementary school students will now pay $1.90 for lunch, while adults will pay $3.90 rather than $3.80. Secondary school students will pay $2.30 for lunch and adults will pay $3.90. Students at all schools will pay $1.30 for breakfast instead of $1.20, while adults will pay $1.85.
“Last year we did not have an increase,” said Kathy Allen, school food service director, “so this would be the year that we would increase the price to help cover our costs.”
The next SAD 1 board meeting will be at 5 p.m. Wednesday, July 14 in the board conference room at PIHS.
NELSON “NELLIE” GUERRETTE, head custodian at Pine Street Elementary School, is retiring after working in SAD 1 for 52 years. Guerrette spent numerous years at the former Cunningham Middle School, where the gymnasium was even named in his honor. Bob Gagnon, SAD 1 operations supervisor, called Guerrette “the measuring stick for the new generation of facility managers.” Pictured with Guerrette is Lucy Richard, chair of the SAD 1 board of directors.
SIX RETIRING SAD 1 EMPLOYEES with a combined 224 years of service to the district were recognized last Wednesday night at the SAD 1 board meeting. Pictured are, from left: Byron “Barney” Lockhart, eighth-grade English teacher at Presque Isle Middle School (34 years); Marti Pritchard, special education teacher at Zippel Elementary School (24 years); Patricia Cole, Presque Isle High School English teacher (31 years); Ed Avery, special education ed tech at Zippel (6 years); Nelson “Nellie” Guerrette, head custodian at Pine Street Elementary School (52 years); and Allen Henderson, custodian at PIHS (35 years). The retirees each received a plaque and a gift certificate from the SAD 1 School Farm.
