Beloved Episcopal Church preschool teacher retires

Published 9:59 pm Friday, May 16, 2008

EVERETT — Brianne Cote, the 3-year-old Everett girl with the red curly hair, summed up what everyone loved most about Joan Willits.

“She gives me hugs,” she said.

How many?

“Four,” she said holding up four fingers.

Hugs and flowers were plentiful as family and children honored Willits, Trinity Episcopal Church’s longtime preschool teacher, on Friday, her last day at the school.

As many as 50 people, little girls in dresses and little boys with neatly combed hair, along with parents and grandparents gathered in Roger’s Hall for a lunch and presentation at the church to honor their teacher.

Willits started teaching at the school in 1987, and several generations of children have passed through her tutelage.

“I’ll miss those hugs and hearing the kids shout out, ‘I love you,’ from across the room,” said Willits, who has three children and four grandchildren of her own.

Willits said she calculated that she has gotten to know more than 300 families over the past 20 years. “I can pretty much tell you who they all are,” she said.

Besides Everett, Lynnwood, Mill Creek and Clearview, some families have come from as far away as Mount Vernon, Kirkland and Arlington.

With those families have come lots of memories.

Willits estimated she has changed about 8,800 diapers, tied about 22,000 pairs of shoes and wiped 17,600 runny noses.

Laurie Crawford, who organized the retirement party, said her daughter, Carrie Stevens, 24, was one of the first children at the school when it first started. She was 3 when she started.

Now Stevens’ daughter, Sydney, 3, was part of Willits’ last class.

Willits was the Christian education director for First Congregational Church in Everett before she took on the role of Trinity’s preschool teacher. She said she has always been involved in Sunday school and she once operated her own licensed day care. She also took child-care classes in high school.

Originally from Lakota, N.D., Willits moved to Washington in 1968 with her mother, who came to the state for a better job. Willits started attending Everett High School in 1968 and graduated from the school in 1971. Her mother worked as a cook for what was then Scott Paper Company.

Willits won’t be idle in her retirement. She is a wedding coordinator for her church, and she plans to continue working in a floral business she started about two years ago.

Willits and her husband, Rick, who is the maintenance supervisor at Everett Golf and Country Club, have been married for 36 years. The couple met when they were both juniors at Everett High School “in the darkroom,” Willits said.

Besides working in her business, Willits said she is looking forward to working in her flower garden, where she tends to her favorite flowers: lilacs, carnations and miniature roses. Her garden features her first lilac, one that her mother gave her on May Day many years ago.

At the end of Friday’s ceremony, each of the children gave Willits potted flowers. She said she will plant the flowers — that included purple petunias, marigolds and a tall bright pink fuchsia — in her garden. She’ll remember the children as she tends to those flowers.

Reporter Leita Hermanson Crossfield: 425-339-3449 or lcrossfield@heraldnet.com.