By Kim McDarison

Three members of the Whitewater Unified School District staff were recognized Thursday for their years of service and beginning of their retirement by, collectively, some 50 members of the district’s board, administration, and staff, along with other guests.

Susan Payne, a high school math and science teacher who had served the district for 20 years prior to her retirement, and Karen Tordera, a high school choir teacher who had served the district for 29 years prior to her retirement, arrived at the Willow Brook Golf Course clubhouse, Whitewater, where they each received a plaque in recognition of their school district service from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction Superintendent Jill Underly, words of praise and encouragement from Whitewater High School Associate Principal Nathan O’Shaughnessy, and support and camaraderie from their peers, family members, and other assembled guests.

Ron Kelley, a grounds supervisor, who served the district for 32 years before retiring in March, also was recognized. Kelley who was unable to attend the dinner, was introduced to dinner guests by Whitewater Unified School District Superintendent Caroline Pate-Hefty, who also delivered the program’s opening remarks. 

The event’s late afternoon activities began with a social hour, followed by a buffet-style meal and cake, and a program during which each retiring teacher was recognized. 

At the podium, Pate-Hefty asked those in attendance to consider the impact made by each of the retirees, saying: “Can you imagine the impact of 32 years of our grounds being kept beautiful by Ron? The number of graduations that Ron set up for and the different stories he could share about the antics of senior pranks from 29 years ago?”

She recalled that 29 years ago, the district’s teachers were conducting classes in what was then a brand new high school, and, she said, in the 1990s, teachers were engaged in “panicked discussions” about such changes in education as “multimedia computers,” worrying that they might make teachers “obsolete.” Back then, she said, teachers used such tools as overhead projectors, and “regularly had erasable markers on their hands from wiping off transparencies.”

Cutting edge technology was in the computer labs, she said, adding: “It could never have been imagined each student would have their own one-to-one device provided by the schools.”

Pate-Hefty, too, asked those in attendance to think about all the lives the staff members had changed and molded.

“If they taught six sections a year, with just 24 students, that is 288 students a year for 32 years; that is almost 10,000 students in a 32-year career,” she said.

Noting Kelley’s career, she said that the supervisor had been in the district’s employ from 1991 until early this year.

For Tordera, according to a printed program, along with her 29 years of teaching within the district — where, over the course of her tenure and with the exception of the middle school — she taught students in each of the district’s school buildings, she also served as the general chairperson of the Wisconsin Music Educators Association, a group leader for Student Centered Learning in the Arts of Wisconsin, a team leader on the district’s Curriculum Council, and as an instructor with the Wisconsin Center for Music Education.

Before her arrival at the podium, O’Shaughnessy said of Tordera, that she had served, over the course of her full teaching career, for 37 years, noting of her 29 years spent in Whitewater, that in today’s teaching world, “it will be harder and harder to find educators who stay in the same district for that length of time.” 

He called her career, “truly remarkable,” further describing her ability to teach students at both the elementary and high school levels as “a rare superpower.”

He cited her patience and talent as guiding forces within her success.

At the podium, Tordera received a hug from her principal, a plaque and applause before saying a few words.

Tordera, during her comments, thanked those over the course of her career who had served her as mentors, giving a special thanks to former Lakeview Elementary School Principal Randy Holschbach, whom, she said, was her first principal at Lakeview, and Pam Sonmor-Wintz, whom, she said, was her first teaching partner in the district, with that relationship beginning in 1995.

Prior to teaching in Whitewater, Tordera said she taught overseas in Hamburg.

“The school had a mix of German nationals and children of parents who worked for multinational companies,” she said, and she enjoyed teaching elementary-school-aged children how to match a pitch and keep a steady beat.

She described a particular student named Edmund, whom, she said, had trouble finding his “singing voice.” At the conclusion of her humorous tale, Tordera noted that her student did find his singing voice, and after singing in class, she said, “the class cheered, I gave him a sticker that he put on his cardigan. He was beaming. He left that sticker on his cardigan until it rolled up and fell off.”

With visible emotion, Tordera said the story had meaning for her beyond the gratifying success she shared with the student: it was a story she told when she interviewed for her position as a teacher in Whitewater.

Offering some word of wisdom to the audience, she said: “What we say to others matters, even when it’s not a planned, written-out speech. Perhaps the words I said to Edmund continued to have an impact on him. Maybe now, as an adult, he is able to sing “Happy Birthday” to his friends or a lullaby to his children, all because he found his singing voice.”

She thanked her fellow teachers for their words and impact that they spread each day.

He story was met with outbursts of laughter and her wisdom met with applause. 

Payne, who has served the district for 20 years, also was lauded by O’Shaughnessy. Of the teacher, he said she was described by her colleagues within the school’s science department as “kind, understanding and friendly.”

Said O’Shaughnessy: “She may not be the most vocal and outspoken of the team, but the clever wisdom she has to offer, often in the form of subtle one-liners, comes as a form of relief when tensions are high or when they need to put things into perspective.”

Relating the words of a colleague, O’Shaughnessy said that Payne was described as a mentor, who supported a new teacher through “the rollercoaster of new experiences that all new teachers experience. She leads by example and is a wonderful, respectful person.”

Arriving at the podium, Payne received a plaque and a milestone 20-years-of-service gift, and then addressed the room, saying: “I am a person of very little words, and many students have talked to me and said that they liked my classroom, not because it’s chemistry, because it’s hard — chemistry is really hard — but because it’s calm, and a lot of teachers are very loud, and boisterous, and I’m calm almost all the time. And they know if I’m not calm, something is wrong.”

Her comments brought laughter from the audience.

She said she taught math when she arrived in the district for seven years, and then she taught math and chemistry, and at the end of her career, she was teaching chemistry exclusively.

She enjoys teaching, she said, adding: “I love to spread that joy to the kids.”

Before she was a teacher, Payne said she worked in private industry, which, she said, she believed helped her in her teaching career because “I could bring in some ideas that really happen in real life.”

She thanked her fellow teachers, mentors, and her students, saying “the kids were wonderful and I have really enjoyed teaching them.”

Pate-Hefty concluded the program by noting that Payne had taught her own children, and she enjoyed hearing the stories her children brought home.

She thanked those in attendance for helping to honor the departing teachers. 

Photos from the event follow.