Adam and Clinton Seal have shared more than a womb.
They went to elementary, middle and Cascade High School together.
They attended Everett Community College and earned their bachelor’s degrees from Western Washington University’s elementary education program in Everett, where they used the same set of textbooks.
Each worked their way through college: Adam at Pizza Hut; Clinton at Papa Murphy’s.
They restored old cars: Adam, his black 1963 Falcon; Clinton, his yellow 1957 Chevy.
This fall, the identical twins – who are 25 – have reunited once more as teachers at Challenger Elementary School in south Everett.
Clinton, who was a long-term substitute at Challenger last year, is teaching second grade, and Adam is teaching fourth.
Clinton was hired in June and, in an indirect way, he helped Adam get his foot in the door.
“I had heard all these good things about Clinton,” said principal Dirk Adkinson, who took over July 1. “And I knew Adam was still out there.”
Clinton told his new boss: “If you believe in me, you have to believe in my brother. He does just as good of work, if not better.”
Adkinson assembled an interview team.
“When Adam walked into the room, you could tell that they were the same but vastly different,” he said.
Adam, with spiky hair and a casual air, is the more colorful and animated of the pair. He works retail at the mall as a second job, greeting customers and working the cash register.
Clinton, his hair clipped short, is more reserved and orderly. He’s the rower who didn’t think twice in college about getting up at 4:15 a.m. to get to the river by 5.
Both, their principal said, “will go above and beyond for their kids to learn,” both academically and through life experiences.
These days, the brothers share lesson plan ideas over Chinese food dinners and sore knees and muscles from all the crouching they do to get to eye level with their students.
They still live together at home, saving money to move out on their own.
Adam suggests they might get a condominium together. Clinton, the tidy one, figures he’d need his own floor.
There’s plenty of brotherly banter between the two.
“I’m the morning person and Adam is not,” Clinton mused. “If he doesn’t get enough sleep, he gets in a very bad mood.”
“My brother likes country music,” Adam laments. “I couldn’t save him. I’ve tried. There was not much I could do. It’s hopeless.”
Adam is slightly taller and was a bigger baby. Clinton figures his brother, older by five minutes, hogged nutrients in the womb.
In middle school, they started going their own ways in style, interests and circles of friends.
Yet the older they get, the tighter their bond gets.
“We had to establish our own identities,” Clinton said. “Now, we are real close.”
“We are really close now that we are both teachers,” Adam said. “Teaching has brought us together.”
Reporter Eric Stevick: 425-339-3446 or stevick@heraldnet.com.
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