About Chris
My name is Chris. I was born in Marshalltown, Iowa, into a working-class family. I would eventually have two siblings, an older sister, and a younger brother, which makes me a “middle child.” Make what you want with that.
When I was five years-old, the family moved 20 miles to Gladbrook, Iowa, to move in with my maternal grandmother, who could no longer live on her own. Gladbrook, population just under 1000, was pretty much like most other small Iowa communities. Everyone knew everyone, and as a kid, everyone knew who your parents were. My younger days were spent playing cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers, and other make-believe games with the neighborhood kids. I am so grateful I grew up in a time when we could explore the whole town without fear of anything bad happening, and before computers and cell phones.
Shortly after our move, I started Kindergarten, and later graduated from the same school, Gladbrook Community School. I have memories of each of my elementary teachers and classes, along with most of my junior high and high school classes and teachers. All grades, K-12, were housed in the same building. We only lived two blocks from the school, and since my mother was a stay-at-home mom, my sister, brother, and I walked home each day for lunch (rain or shine) for our entire school career. Eating “hot lunch” was considered a treat for my siblings and me. I was considered a pretty good student, I got good grades, schoolwork came easy to me and I really didn’t have to study too much. I played basketball, though I wasn’t very talented. I like to think my strong point was that I worked as hard or harder than others on the team. I was also involved in other non-athletic, extra-curricular activities, such as yearbook, one-act plays, and student council. Thirteen years after starting, 35 classmates and I walked across the stage in the new gym and received our diplomas.
From high school I enrolled at Buena Vista College in Storm Lake, Iowa. Storm Lake was a three-hour drive, and since I didn’t have a car, I learned very quickly how to adjust to being away from home. College was a lot like high school, classes for the most part came easy, though I did have to study a lot more than I did in high school. At BV I also got involved in extra-curricular activities. I joined Esprit d’ Corps, the group that gave tours of the campus to prospective students. I was involved in the drama program, acting in two or three productions and working back-stage on many more. I also got involved in student government and was elected student body president my senior year. After four years, I graduated with a math education major and a mass communications minor.
My first teaching job was in Woodbine, Iowa, teaching junior high and high school math. In the eleven years I spent in Woodbine I taught almost every math class, except for Algebra II. I took classes and gained my coaching endorsement, and at different time I was the assistant boys basketball coach, assistant junior high football coach, and the varsity volleyball coach. I also spent five years as the drama coach. It was also at Woodbine where I got involved in the teachers’ union serving as the local president, then a member of the UniServ unit board, and started getting involved in state activities.
In year eleven, I decided if I didn’t move to a different district, I would be spending the rest of my life in Woodbine. That would not have been a bad thing as I had a lot of good friends and enjoyed working in the district, however, something told me I needed to explore other opportunities. I was hired by the Knoxville CSD, in Knoxville, Iowa, to teach mainly Algebra I in the 7-9 junior high building. I was also hired as the 10th grade boys basketball coach. Through the years I moved from the junior high to the high school, helped start the alternative high school, then moved to the middle school, and back to the high school. I also coached 9th grade boys basketball, took a stint as the varsity girls basketball coach, and advised two or three different student groups. I continued my work in the union, was local president, served on the UniServ board, and then served on the state Executive Board.
In 2008, I was elected president of the Iowa State Education Association, the state’s teachers’ union. This was a full-time position, so I took a leave from the classroom to fulfil the duties of president. The four years I spent as president were some of the best years of my life. I got to travel the state talking to teachers and other school employees, I also traveled all over the country for meetings. I was honored to testify in front of a U.S. Senate subcommittee, chaired by Iowa’s Senator Harkin. I also got to attend a Rose Garden ceremony where Iowa’s Teacher of the Year was honored as the National Teacher of the Year. In those four years I met made many friends from all over the country.
Having term-limited out, and not old enough to retire, I decided to go back into the classroom. Des Moines North needed a math teacher and hired me to teach Geometry for a semester. I then spent four years in the Academic Support Lab and finished my career teaching Algebra II. I find it a little ironic that the one class I never taught in my first teaching assignment is the class I finished my career teaching.
In May, 2019, after a 42-year career in education I retired. While I can be as lazy and idle as a lot of people, I also am not content to do nothing, thus I decided I needed to follow my dream of traveling the country while living in an RV. And that is what I am doing today…