By Kari Bray • Herald Writer
DARRINGTON — Some of them never expected to find their way back to a Darrington classroom.
Others always planned to come home.
Former students now teach in the classrooms where they learned at Darrington’s elementary and high schools, which share a campus on Fir Street. A few have been there for decades, long enough to have colleagues who were once their students. They’re a tight-knit team who were once hometown kids. They can find their younger selves in framed photos of senior classes on the school walls.
A third of the folks who work in Darrington schools also were students there.
Of 31 teachers and administrators, 10 graduated from Darrington High School. Of 50 support staff, 16 are Darrington grads. That includes office staff, bus drivers and custodians.
There now are about 425 students in the Darrington School District. The schools are the heart of this small, close community, where locals refer to everything west of the mountain town as “Down Below.”
The teachers say they returned to their hometown to be near family, to enjoy the wild surroundings, because they always wanted to or by sheer coincidence. In any case, they share a common goal: giving back to the community that raised them.
• • •
Eileen Draper, 61, teaches science in the same classroom where she once studied the subject. A 1972 graduate, she’s been teaching in Darrington for 22 years.
“Some of the students I’m teaching now are the children of students I taught in the past,” she said. “I haven’t quite gotten to their grandchildren yet.”
Draper teaches science and health. She’s the adviser for the science club, which sponsors blood drives and won a grant to put solar panels on the high school roof.
It’s not what Draper would have expected when she was in school. Science wasn’t her thing. She loved drama, debate and was editor of the school paper. She started teaching after she and her husband moved their family back to her hometown.
“I hadn’t really thought that I’d ever want to be a teacher, but I had some great teachers here,” Draper said. “I’m still using skills I learned from teachers at Darrington High School.”
• • •
The Darrington grads who came home to teach describe their coworkers as family.
For a few of them, it’s more than sentiment.
Cory and Helen Ross were a few years apart in high school and didn’t know each other well. Her dad is a high school teacher and his mom was a bus driver.
Cory started teaching in Darrington while Helen was in college. When she needed to observe a classroom for her teaching program, her dad — longtime teacher Chuck Quantrille — recommended she go to Cory Ross’ class. After the observation, Cory asked Quantrille if it would be OK to ask his daughter on a date. He said yes, and so did she.
The couple married in 2004. They and their daughters now live two blocks from the school, in a neighborhood with “a million dollar view” of Whitehorse Mountain.
“It’s part of our history and we want our girls to have that childhood because, as far as I’m concerned, mine was pretty good,” said Helen Ross, 33. She teaches first grade.
The best man at their wedding was Ben Miller, who graduated with Cory Ross in 1997 and is now the high school art teacher. Older cousin Cameron Ross is a Darrington teacher, too.
“When I was in school, I never envisioned coming back,” Cory Ross, 36, said. “I had that small town mentality: ‘I’m gonna get out of here.’”
When a job opened up, though, he took it. He has no regrets. He teaches math and physical education and has been a coach and athletic director.
“After 14 years of teaching, I think I fall back in love with teaching classes every year,” he said.
Miller, Cory Ross’ childhood friend and best man, didn’t plan to be a teacher. The friends shared a role model, a former teacher and coach named Roger Padgett. Padgett inspired Miller to become a teacher.
“Where else would you want to teach than where you grew up and where you can really relate to students?” Miller, 37, said. “Geographically, it is five miles to untouched snow if I want to go skiing. On a spring day, it’s a trip through the woods to get to my house. It’s a back road. There’s peace in that.”
Earlier this month, seniors in his class painted tiles to put up on the ceiling of the art room. In keeping with tradition, the tiles will hang there until next year’s seniors paint theirs. Miller teaches different mediums in his classes, including ceramics made from local clay.
“I’m kind of big on town pride,” he said. “I want people to be proud of where they’re from.”
• • •
Susan Howard, 51, shares Miller’s sense of pride in her town. She had other offers when she was looking for a teaching job 21 years ago.
“I just said ‘No, I want to go back to Darrington. That’s where I really want to be,’ ” she said
She teaches fifth grade now and previously taught English at the high school. A group of her classmates from the class of 1982 still gets together for dinners. They gathered in Maltby last month.
Howard always knew she wanted to be a teacher. She was a hardworking student and athlete. One of the kids she met at school was Tracy Franke, now the elementary principal.
“It’s a tight community,” Howard said. “Everyone helped everyone grow up, pretty much. I just wanted to give back.”
Franke, 48, graduated in 1985 and has worked in Darrington schools since 1990. She taught fifth grade but handed her class over to Cory Ross when she left for maternity leave. She came back and later co-taught with another Darrington graduate, Shawna Brown, so she could work toward becoming principal.
“I like working in a small school where besides a teacher you have opportunities to grow as a leader,” she said. “I like seeing my families out in the community. I like having that connection with them.”
Franke didn’t expect to stay in Darrington. She came to visit the principal for a letter of recommendation and he encouraged her to apply for a job.
She and her husband Ray taught several of the students who went on to become teachers. The Frankes have sons in Darrington’s high school and middle school.
“It can be challenging sometimes making it clear when I’m Mrs. Franke the principal and when I’m Tracy their friend’s mom,” she said. “I hate being called Mrs. Franke at home.”
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In a small town, people get pretty good at respecting the separation between work and home. Everyone knows each other — a blessing and a curse.
Counselor Brett Galbraith, 57, thinks it’s usually a blessing. He graduated in 1978 and has worked in Darrington for 29 years. He helps teens take the classes they need and pushes them to plan for life after high school. Five of his fellow teachers were his students at one point.
“The kids I’ve taught before now have kids here,” he said. “It helps me because I really know where they’re coming from.”
Cameron Ross, one of Galbraith’s former students and Cory Ross’ cousin, didn’t know what he wanted to do until his senior year of high school in 1990. He was encouraged by his teachers to join their ranks. Now 43, he teaches middle school. He figures he’ll soon be teaching children of former students. He’s been teaching in Darrington since 2000.
“I enjoyed growing up here, so coming back to teach here felt familiar,” he said.
• • •
There’s a lot of trust and friendship amongst the teachers, who are quick to celebrate their colleagues’ accomplishments or laugh over a shared memory. They’re not afraid to lean on each other and vent frustrations when they need to.
“I like having close relationships with the people I work with,” said Melissa Cumming. “Sometimes it’s like we can read each others’ minds. We can get things done without talking.”
The 35-year-old went to school with Miller and Cory Ross and now teaches with Cameron Ross at the middle school. She wanted to live close to family, which drew her back to Darrington after college. She started as a substitute teacher in the classroom where her younger sister was a student. Cumming graduated in 1998 and started teaching in 2004.
Shawna Brown, 31, also teaches at the middle school. Cameron Ross was her high school basketball coach and Helen Ross graduated two years ahead of her. Several of her coworkers were once her teachers.
A 2002 graduate, Brown spent eight years teaching in Eastern Washington before coming home in 2010. She was surprised to end up in Darrington but her ties to the community help her relate to students. Understanding their background often makes it easier to get through to them, she said.
“It’s nice that way because it’s not a guessing game,” Brown said.
• • •
They were different people in high school, athletes, actors, artists. Some were shy. Some were smart alecks.
Franke was the mother hen who always had an aspirin and Band-Aids in her purse. Cameron Ross was such a good kid he asked for detention his senior year just to see what all the fuss was about. Cumming and Helen Ross were quiet students who turned up the volume to be cheerleaders. Cory Ross was bright, liked to speak up in class and now admits he was a bit of a pain.
The things that set them apart weren’t as strong as what brought them together as teachers.
Every school day, they wake up and go back to class. Darrington is where they were meant to be: teaching in the town that shaped them.
“Most of our memories are playing sports or on the bus or in school here,” Cory Ross said. “They’re all in this place.”
Kari Bray: 425-339-3439; kbray@heraldnet.com.
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