On these pages I have made mention of some English teachers I know were very important to me during my formative years.
In high school there was Mrs. Kain and Mrs. Englehardt. And we could not forget Mrs. Miller. They all played a part in my English teaching life long before it got here.
Millard Dunn has been the subject of multiple pages here along the way. He was my English mentor in college and in life. Many a day I go back to words that I caught in his classroom and never let go of. I was better for doing so. Hopefully some of that will rub off on students I teach today.
Referencing these venerable folks from the past is the natural order of things I suppose. That is the way it goes right? You look back and you look far enough behind you where things are safe and mostly in monthballs now.
Today we are going to get a little closer to home and talk about a couple of English teachers that have made a great impression on me as fellow educators. Now there is some territory you rarely read about. Many reasons dictate this I think. You are afraid you might offend someone else. Or you just don’t take the time to introspectively peel back layers that are not about the next lesson. Maybe they really are.
On June 10th I finished an ambitious piece of narrative nonfiction that is my Long and Winding Road. Two people I gave treatment to when I wrote this tome were Cathy Clouse and Bart Bigham. If my tome never sees the light of day, let me tell you a little about these two now.
I worked with Cathy Clouse at Medora Schools longer than I can remember. Well, not really; it all started in March of 1998. That was when I began a 15-plus year stint at Medora that came in two parts. March 1998 to May 2000 and August 2002 to June 2015. Yes, I left them and they called me back.
Cathy and I worked well together. We sat around more school improvement meeting tables together than I want to remember. But I am sure I want to remember Cathy being there. We never had a cross word. She vented to me when she needed to and I’m sure I bent her ear a few times too.
Cathy gave me my greatest triumph in teaching. I never told her that. I was hoping she would one day read about it when my tome gets published. Little did we know, that less than two weeks after I placed the last piece of punctuation on my chunky writing, Cathy passed away. She died on June 23rd. I was taken aback.
Once upon a time Cathy was working with some students on what we called End of Course Assessment practice. The ECA was one of many Indiana testing snafus over the years. What happened was that Cathy was getting frustrated with a group of nine juniors and seniors who had yet to “pass” their English ECA. I’m sure this was yet another task she was heaped on. Small schools are quaint to those in bigger schools whose work load is lesser than the case load of the teacher at the small school. I taught four levels of English at Medora once upon a time in the same school year. Cathy understood this too well. She had been there.
Cathy had the guts to come to me and ask me if I would work with these juniors and seniors to see if I could help them pass their English End of Course Assessment, again, this was one of Indiana’s educational farts. I told Cathy I would help them and in the process I was helping her.
Cathy Clouse did not let her ego get in the way. She knew of my proclivity for writing and thought she could tune into it and let me help these nine upperclassmen.
“Do you think you can help us?”
That was Cathy’s question to me. I told her to send them my way. She did. This was in early October. The next retest was in early December. I looked at every one of those kids and told them how Mrs. Clouse had their best interest at heart. Cathy could probably diagram sentences that would give me a headache. But she knew I could help kids be better writers. And that is all we did. We met once or twice a week for an hour at a time and talked about writing. When we were not talking about writing, we were writing. And writing. And writing. Those kids were delighted to see December roll around.
Those nine took the ECA over again, as was required by the mighty tower to the North in Indianapolis. Six of the nine passed both the reading and the writing sections. Eight of the nine passed the writing sections. We didn’t have time to reinvent reading comprehension and writing. But what writing does is open a door to the mind that was not there seven minutes ago. Thankfully, these kids were like Mrs. Clouse. They had open minds.
A few hours ago I was in Mr. Bart Bigham’s classroom at North Harrison High School. Room 134. The room just feels good to me walking inside it. Bart Bigham did that.
When I left Medora School as a counselor and English teacher, I came home to North Harrison in August of 2015 as a full time counselor. Some things I never learn. Just as I left Medora for a couple of years before I came back, I left North in March of 2020 for a year and change. In the fall of 2021, I was on the NH campus again. This time teaching English full time. Thank you, Mr. Kellems.
As soon as I landed in Cougarville the first time in 2015, I gravitated to Mr. Bigham. His class room walls were filled with literary and musical references I understood. I knew. We just hit it off. As a counselor with English teaching experience, Bart let me come in and guest lecture on subjects that lent to the significance of utilizing the English language. I talked to his students about the importance of influences in our lives and how we can influence others. Another year I talked to his students about songwriting and how ubiquitous songs are in our lives in every season and every holiday. We wrote our own songs. In the fall of 2018, I pondered what to share with his students in the coming spring. I decided on the power of the written word. This prompted me to write a letter to folks at The Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. I told them my dear wife, Carrie, and I were coming out for a game. This led me to kicking field goals in an empty Rose Bowl and I did not miss. Talk about a thrill. Talk about a tangible truth to share. Thank you, Mr. Bigham and your 11th graders. I would never have gotten there without you.
Bart Bigham is moving on. He too is heading home. He has accepted a job in Oakland City, Indiana at Wood Memorial Jr-Sr High School. Bart would NEVER tell you he was a member of the Greater Evansville Basketball Hall of Fame Induction Class of 2017. He never told me. I did what writers do. I looked it up!
Last school year Bart and I were English teachers together. But, we always were.
Bart Bigham was tireless in his endeavors to support and lead students and athletes at North Harrison. A man for all seasons, Bart coached boys tennis in the fall, girls tennis in the spring, and was an assistant basketball coach for a sport that knows no down time in Indiana.
That I was able to talk to Bart today in his room one last time will stay with me as long as I have a memory in good working order. And when I think about it I will smile and know thanksgiving and camaraderie and respect. I’m sad. But I am so happy for Bart. Thomas Wolfe had it wrong, Bart. You can go home again.
Speaking the rights.
Danny Johnson