Eve Suckow: “I always wanted to be a teacher.”

By LeAnn R. Ralph

COLFAX — After 43 years in education, and after teaching sixth grade in Colfax for 38 years, Eve Suckow officially retired at the end of the school year.

Suckow, along with other retirees and staff members from the school district, was honored at the Colfax school district’s staff recognition banquet at Whitetail Golf Course May 24.

“After school each day, my sister and I would play school. She was two years older than me, so she always got to be the teacher. If she wasn’t around, then I could be the teacher,” Suckow said.

“I pretended I was Mrs. Landon. The wife of Michael Landon, from the TV show Bonanza,” she said with a laugh.

Before coming to Colfax, Suckow taught four years in Altoona and one year of combination fifth and sixth grade at Knapp.

After accepting a teaching position in Colfax, she taught fourth, fifth and sixth grade for five years at Plainview, a country school 18 miles north of Colfax off of Highway 64.

The first two years at Plainview, Suckow worked with Kris Tice, who taught grades one, two and three. For the next three years, she worked with with Deb Berndt, who taught grades one, two and three.

Plainview closed eventually because of declining enrollment, and Suckow moved to Colfax.

“I came into town, and I’ve been teaching sixth grade for the past 33 years. Many teachers have been required to change teaching assignments and to change grades a number of times. But luckily, I never had to,” Suckow said.

While teaching in Colfax, Suckow said she has raised over $24,000 through the boxtops and milk cap programs.

“I had many years of perfect attendance, including a string of eleven years in a row. I’ve been blessed with good health,” she said.

“I loved going to school every day. And I never counted the days until the last day of school, either,” Suckow said.

Well.

There was one class that turned out to be a challenge.

“On the second day of school, I said, ‘only 179 days left!’” Suckow recalled.

“I always looked forward to the first day of school. When I was a kid I looked forward to the first day of school. I loved going shopping for school clothes and supplies. The night before the first day of school I would get out all of my supplies and line them up,” she said.

First job

“Forty-three years is a nice amount of time to be a teacher. It seems like just yesterday I was being interviewed for my first teaching job,” Suckow said.

“I got the typical interview question, ‘why did you want to become a teacher?’ I suppose I was expected to say something like, ‘I just want to help children reach their full potential.’ What I really wanted to say was, ‘I want one of those big desks with the wide drawer in front with all those little sections for pencils and paperclips and papers!’” she said.

“Instead, I relayed that story about playing school every day when I was a child, and the only way I could BE the teacher was to really BECOME one. I just always wanted to be a teacher. The interviewer must have liked my answer, because I got the job,” Suckow said.

But what about the desk?

“I found out that teaching was a little more than a great desk. But then, we all know that,” she said.

Changes

As readers can imagine, there are bound to be a number of changes over the years.

One of those changes is the way in which copies are made of materials for students.

Years ago, “if I needed copies of worksheets, I ran them off on a mimeograph machine. Does anyone remember the purple ink all over everything? And the wonderful smell!” Suckow recalled.

“Now it’s Xerox copies that are nice and warm. They feel great on winter days,” she said.

“Other changes were telephones. We used to have to go to the elementary office to make a telephone call. Now I have a phone on my desk. And everyone has a cell phone. I started out writing on a chalk board. And now I use a Promethean board. I love it,” Suckow said, adding that it would be perfectly fine with her if she were allowed to take the Promethean board home with her.

“Fashion has changed too. When I first started teaching, I wore bell bottoms. Plaid bell bottoms with cuffs. Now anything goes. Even plaid bell bottoms with cuffs,” she said.

“As a teacher, you try to make a positive difference. You do the best you can. And that’s all you can do. I kept this quote on my desk. ‘Children may forget what you say but they will never forget how you make them feel.’ Everyone knows people do not teach for the money. It’s a passion. It’s in the blood. Teaching is the profession that teaches all other professions,” Suckow said.

Students

Suckow says she does not know how many students she has taught in 43 years.

Her smallest class was ten students at Plainview.

Most years, though, she taught two to four classes of 24 to 35 students each.

“All together, that’s a lot of students. I hope they remember me in a positive way,” she said.

Suckow asked those attending the school district’s recognition banquet for a show of hands to see how many in the room had been her students.

About half the room raised their hands.

“And I’m still calling you my kids,” she said.

“Sadly, I have lost many of them too. I don’t know how many of the students I taught at Altoona have died, but I have lost at least 30 students from (Colfax). That’s a whole class of students. I pray for them because they didn’t get a chance to realize their dreams like I did. And we also lost a wonderful principal, Dennis Geissler,” Suckow said.

“Here in Colfax, I taught with teachers who were my teachers. I taught with Jean LaRue and Bill LaRue, the high school principal. Jean was my high school English teacher in Elk Mound when I was a senior there,” she said.

“I also taught here with Hazel Lee, who had been my seventh grade teacher in Elk Mound,” Suckow noted.

“I am teaching now with teachers and other employees who were my students. Missy Prince. Jeanette Kiekhafer. Courtney Doucette. Kirk Secraw. Matt De Moe. Ashley Kley Goulet. Kristi Winget Nelson. Scott Schmock. Tina Rothbauer-Swanson. Kristi Marko. Ryan Larson. They were my sixth grade students here in Colfax,” Suckow said.

Suckow also wanted to know if her classroom could be named after her.

After all, Martin Anderson has a gymnasium named after him.

And Lee Bjurquist has an athletic complex named after him.

Earlier in her remarks, Suckow had said sometimes students would ask how old she was, and she would tell them Abraham Lincoln was her next door neighbor when she was growing up or that George Washington had been one of her students.

“The sad thing is, some of them believed me!” she said.

Suckow also told the assembled group one of her daughters had once asked if Suckow was “sad when the dinosaurs died.”

So, in regard to naming the classroom after her, Suckow said she had the perfect choice.

“You could call it ‘The Eve Suckow Dinosaur Park!’” she said.

All joking aside, Bill Yingst, district administrator, indicated how much Suckow’s dedication had been appreciated in the school district and how much the dedication of all school staff is appreciated.

“This is a team effort. We can’t do it alone. As I said at graduation, it takes a village. It takes a lot of great teachers and staff,” Yingst said.

Other retirees

Three other retirees were honored during the staff recognition banquet as well.

Todd Kragness, president of the Colfax Board of Education, presented rings to each of those who are retiring.

Molly Bergeson has worked in food service at the Colfax school district for 25 years.

Arlene Hintzman has worked in food service for 19 years.

Ron Swartz has worked as the maintenance and custodial supervisor in the district for 20 years and will be officially retiring in September.

Bergeson, Hintzman and Swartz each told the assembled crowd how much they had enjoyed working in the school district and how much they treasured their co-workers and the experiences they’d had over the years.