Happy Retirement!

Maine is fortunate to have such marvelous educators!

We know that what a teacher offers can have an enormous impact on student development day to day AND over their lifetime. As educators retire at the close of another school year, 2017-18, I know that you join me in THANKING them for their years of service and dedication to students across the state.

I certainly appreciate your commitment and I wish each of you a healthy retirement and many, many years of laughter and love!

The following have contributed a combined 483+ years to teaching visual or performing arts education!

• VICKI BOVE, Gorham Middle School, Visual Arts, 40 years
• FLO ESINGER, SAD l5, Visual Arts, ? years
• ALLEN GRAFFAM, Mt. Ararat High School, Music, 42 years
• KATIE HALL, Falmouth Elementary School, Visual Arts, 24 years
• PHIL HAMMET, Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School, Visual Arts, 16 years
• JULIE KLEHN, Waterboro Elementary School, Visual Arts, 31 years
• STEPHANIE LEONARD, Fairmount School, Bangor, Visual Arts, 25 years
• ANNE MACEACHERN, Sanford Junior High School, Visual Arts, 40 years
• JENNI NULL, Songo Locks Elementary School, Music, 40 years
• SAM MOORE-YOUNG, Carrie Ricker School, Litchfield, Music, 32 years
• BEVERLY PACHECO, South School, Rockland, Music, 36 years
• CANDACE PARKER, Lee Academy, Theatre Arts, 22 years
• MARYELLEN SCHAPER, Bonny Eagle Middle School, Dance and PE, 42 years
• CAROL SHUTT, Mount Desert Island Elementary School, Visual Arts, 22 years
• KATHI SUSI, Pittston Consolidated School, Gardiner, Visual Arts, 28 years
• THEO VAN DEVENTER, Mt. View Middle School, Thorndike, Music, 43 years
• Flo Eslinger, who is retiring from elementary visual art after serving SAD

A wonderful note from Ann MacEachern on her retirement from Sanford Junior High School after 40 years:

“I’ll miss the chance to interact with kids as they discover talents they didn’t know they had. The outliers, the experimenters and the endearingly quirky denizens of the art room have made most days a joy. 

Retirement will give me a chance to reorder my priorities: more family time (I have 5 grandchildren), my OWN art projects need attention, traveling adventures, live music venues, environmental concerns, sorting years of accumulation to make space for new blessings… the list goes on. 

To ARTS teachers everywhere: Keep pushing for expansion ARTS time in school schedules, physical space in school buildings and fewer students per art teacher. The world needs creative problem solving now more than ever!”

Happy Retirement!

Maine is fortunate to have such marvelous educators!

We know that what a teacher offers can have an enormous impact on student development day to day AND over their lifetime. As educators retire at the close of another school year, 2016-17, I know that you will join me in THANKING them for their years of service and dedication to students across the state. I certainly appreciate the commitment from the following educators and I wish each of you a healthy retirement and many, many years of laughter and love!

• LINDA BABB, RSU#25, Bucksport, visual art, 47 years
• SUE BOISVERT, Scarborough, music
• JIM BROWN, China Middle School, music. 16+ years
• MARY DEVENNEY, Erskine Academy, visual art, 18 wonderful years
• DEBBIE DiGREGORIO, C.K. Burns School, Saco, visual art, 32 years
• WES FRANKLIN, Greely High School, visual art, 35 years
• PAUL GREENSTONE, Lake Region High School + other schools over the years, music, 40+ years of teaching
• SUSAN HANSON, Blue Point and Eight Corners School, grades K-2, visual art, 31 years
• KENNETH JONES, North Haven Community School, grades K-12, visual art, dance, theater, 24 years
• MARGIE LANDIS, Mt. Ararat High School, music, 30 years
• BETH LIBBY, Wentworth School, grades 3-5, visual art, 36 years
• ROBERT HELSTROM, Hodgdon, music
• CHERYL McGOWAN, Skowhegan Area Middle School, music, 36 very full years
• BETTY MCINTYRE, Windham High School, music, 32 years
• PAUL SCHNELL, George E. Jack and Edna Libby Schools in Standish (SAD/RSU 6), incredible music teacher, 40 years
• JOYCE St. PIERRE, Sanford Schools, elementary visual art, 40 years
• SARAH STUART, Mattanawcook Junior High School, Lincoln, visual art, 40 years
• PAM TURCOTTE, Winthrop Grade School, visual art, 37 years
• Wes Franklin, Visual Art, Greely High School, 35 years

Together these teachers have taught for over 500 years! WOWZER! If you or someone you know is not on the list and retiring please email me and I’d be glad to add them to the list. Thanks!

In and email from Joyce St. Pierre

Art in a room, from a box going floor to floor and room to room, on a cart and in a beautiful art room….all my experiences.

Taught from 6 to 12 classes a day, in 4 to 7 buildings a week, in 22 schools located by lakes, in mountains, towns and cities!

Students ranged from pre-K to K – 6, HS, college, adult ed, and an alternative school.

It’s been fun, frustrating, exhilarating, challenging, expected and unexpected…all over and more…

I’ve worked with some of the best people in the world!

Wouldn’t have changed a thing.

In an email from Kenneth Jones

I have been the k-12 Visual Art teacher from 1998 to 2010 and since then I’ve taught Visual Art k-4 and 9-12. During the entire time I was also the k-12 Physical Education teacher from 1993-2017. Inside of the P.E. job I’ve leaned heavily on my BFA in Dance and Theater. I choreographed all of the John Wulp productions on North Haven (including “Islands”) and produced a Circus Arts presentation every other year for the past twelve years that is full of dance. Every three years I’ve led an “Empty Bowls” fund raiser- focused on a different food bank in Maine or in the world.

Janis (my wife and the k-12 French teacher at NHCS) are off to Durres, Albania where she has accepted a job teaching 2-8 French and TEFL English on the high school level at the Albanian College- Durres. I’ve been promised that they will find a way to keep me busy. I’m taking my bike so I will, very happily, peddle Albania .

Thank you for all of your support over the years. I have benefited tremendously from the conferences I have attended over the years. They serve such an important role for any teachers in isolated positions. I remember your journey to North Haven when North Haven was recognized for Excellence in the Arts. As I recall, it was a bit of a sloppy day on the water!

It has been quite a run on the island but we are both excited for this next adventure.