Mariner High teacher retires after 38 years

Published 12:10 pm Wednesday, June 16, 2010

The veteran English teacher has parted with some of his treasure trove of classroom possessions: Flags from Ukraine and South Africa, plastic swords and Juliet’s headdress were among the first to go.

He handed over Yorick’s skull — alas, Hamlet knew him well — to fellow English teacher Jeremy Kalmback. A collection of movies found a new home in the school library.

After 38 years in the Mukilteo School District, Tim Knopf is retiring from teaching.

At graduation ceremonies June 4, he was given a diploma and a medal and invited to shake the hands of each of the 393 graduates from Mariner High School’s Class of 2010.

It was a fitting moment. Knopf was on the faculty during Mariner’s first graduation ceremony in 1972. His brown hair has slowly turned white since then while his supply of Shakespeare quotes has grown steadily.

“It’s time to go,” Knopf, 60, said Monday. “I loved it, and I hated it, and I’ll miss it forever.”

What he loved the most was his colleagues and the students who could give him energy even when he had run down. What he dreaded most was the tall stacks of essays to correct and grade.

He’ll miss the students discovering that Shakespeare wasn’t so bad after all. There were the after-school book club discussions, the film series he would host and his “UnDead Poets Society.”

Knopf broke in at Mariner as a teaching assistant. He was hired as a teacher at Explorer Middle School in 1975 and transferred back to Mariner in 1993.

A few years ago, he cut his teaching load by a class a day, not because he wanted to spend less time with his students but so that he could spend more time preparing for the classes he taught.

“Each year on the night before the first day of school, he says, ‘I’ll see you in June,’” said his wife, Jackie, who also is retiring from the Everett School District after 26 years of teaching.

His classroom was decorated with a pirate flag for “Treasure Island” and a raven for Edgar Allen Poe. Homer’s classic “The Odyssey” and works of Shakespeare were always close at hand.

The teacher who started with typewriters and carbon paper, ditto machines and mimeographs always seemed to adapt to the times.

“He tries to change it up to meet the needs of today,” said Mariner’s principal Brent Kline.

The district has grown dramatically since Knopf started. Gone is the pasture land and neighbor feeding his chickens on the road to Mariner, which for many years was the district’s lone high school.

Kline said Knopf will be missed.

“Part of the heart strings get pulled,” he said. “He is a favorite among kids and adults. His efforts went well beyond the classroom.”

Eric Stevick: 425-339-3446, stevick@heraldnet.com.