In the interest of fairness...

At SHHS I had three teachers, which as I look back, had significant input:

Ms. David: She was the music teacher when I was a senior. I think she was there only for 1 or 2 years. I gain a great appreciation for music and singing in a choir, something I do to this day. I can still sing the tenor part for the Christmas Cantata we performed.

Sr. Kathleen: She was the chemistry and physics teacher. She was a pretty rigorous teacher and expected a lot out of students. Looking back, her insistence on discipline served me well in college.

Mrs. Bradshaw: She taught english when I was a junior. If you got a A from her, you had really done well. I was barely C student, but she let us write about things of personal interest and on our final term paper I got a rare A. I wrote about the botany of grass species and identification techniques.

[This message has been edited by Richard Bonine, Jr (edited 2/26/2008).]

Diane Welbes, who was my English teacher for a number of years and also taught the "newspaper class" which was something akin to "journalism". Lady Di helped nurture my interest in writing. Her classroom was great fun and I still think of that time as some of the best high school memories I have.

Sr Donna Weber was my art teacher, and she encouraged me to explore many different mediums. I am a producing artist today thanks to her guidance... And patience!

Curt, Shame on you! How can you mention teachers without mentioning Sr. Antonella? She gave meaning to the phrase Mean Nun! I was never sure if she would beat me, or just talk to me. And yet, she did have a huge impact on my life. She kept me focused, and I still have very good spelling today because of her. And what about her drama class? I seem to remember a play you wrote Curt, that she kindly let the class act out. I will always remember your costume, and her reaction to it! Boy, sure a lot of memories.
Liz Hardy Wheeler

Ohhh...where do I begin?

First of all, to Richard Jr. - Yes, I remember Ms. David (Beverly was her name). I definately give her a ton of credit for re-kindling the Sacred Heart Music program. I was in band in her first year, but instruments just never took with me. Richard, I seem to remember attending a spring concert when I was a 6th grader and you were in the "Sacred Heart Pops Choir"...did you enjoy wearing that black disco outfit with the satin green vest, and singing "You Light Up My Life"??? ...the school sprung for red vests the next year since green stopped being Sacred Heart's school color long ago. I also remember Ms. David wearing that loud, Christmas Red dress at the annual Christmas concerts - at least she had the spirit. Yes, she was a good teacher.

The music teacher who really got the SHHS music program to take-off, though, was Terry Annalora. In his couple of years there, he got the choir and band to kick-butt at district and state music festivals like we couldn't believe. Then, of course, there was his assistant: Mrs. Joyce Vera...they were both Sacred Heart Alums and both awesome teachers.

Curt, I will second your motion on Diane "Cookie" Welbes. She comes to mind as, perhaps, the most dedicated teacher that school ever had. She taught all sorts of subjects and well as administrative duties (Jr. high and elementary principal, for example) and was as fair as you could ask a teacher to be. My senior year on the newspaper staff with her was enjoyable...in spite of the fact that I was assigned to write the article in the last issue of "Irish Informer" that announced the closing of the high school.

Sr. Antonella...ummm, yeah, okay.

Let's give it up for a couple others, too - Fr. Joe Ponessa: the entertaining Spanish, Latin and Religion teacher who was quite insightful; Mr. Reed Reyman: he was only there a year, but the students loved the guy...I believe he's now a hospital CEO. Mr. Bob Ouren: his voice was quite monotoned, but the guy was a dedicated and effective math teacher and coach, for sure. Ms. Delores Weber: yes, students mocked her often, but give her credit for this much - she could TEACH and she was quite dedicated to the school as she was there for many years up until it closed.

I'm sure I'll think of others later, but there's a few...to all of them; I'm sorry I wasn't more appreciative of your efforts to teach me when I was there - your lessons took on more meaning in the years that followed. God bless.

Way before my time, but my uncles era, how come no one has yet to mention Dan Connors?

And I had Sister Antonella when I was in 5th or 6th grade at SHS, wow, is it possible to be a messenger of God and feared as a devil?

LOL Liz I'm still in therapy over Sr Antonella! No, truly she was a good teacher in her own way and yeah I learned alot in her class. Hey, I can still recite lines from the Merchant of Venice thanks to her!

I, too, have fond memories of Delores "dew" Weber. I never took a class from her but she was our Yearbook Advisor my Junior and Senior years. She was a hoot.

One guy though that I really should credit for his impact on my life was Fr. Dick Schlosser - He taught me to think about religion and (gasp) even question it. I credit him for much of my well being and growth, and, I think I turned out pretty darn balanced despite it 'all'.

The person who had the greatest positive effect on my life at SHHS and beyond, was Dan Connors. I'm sure this was the case for almost everyone who knew him and I'm sure there are as many stories as there are people he crossed paths with. Dan always tried to teach us by example, one of life's most valuable lessons; how to be decent and gracious human beings.

He was truly one of the finest.

My least favorite, but highly motivational inspiration at SHHS was Fr. Shinnick. The good Irish Padre taught Latin with an Irish brogue and a wicked delivery. Shinnick brought to SHHS, a myriad of old country teaching skills, which included using any weapon immediately available, to punish slackers. He threw books, pens, pencils, erasers and full pieces of chalk at any student caught screwing off.

Never once do I remember him hitting the guilty party. He usually always missed and smacked some poor innocent student who had been hanging on every word..

My personal favorite times were the individual homework Q & A drills. Shinnick would go to the back of the room and call on us to answer his questions. When he called your name, you were required to stand and perform. If you could not answer the question, or gave the wrong answer, he would slip a silver dollar between the first two fingers of his right hand and smack you on the back of the skull with it. I had a bad habit of not doing my homework and I will have seared in my memory forever, the feeling of apprehension, while listening to his footsteps... coming closer..

To this day, whenever I have thoughts of blowing something off until later, I just reach back and feel the dents that are still in the back on my skull...That's inspiration...

BUMP!

I know Sacred Heart HS was small, but there's GOT to be a few others who have memories of teachers there...anyone?

Fr. Shinnick was before my time, but he certainly wasn't the only teacher there who used violence to keep students in-line, I'm sorry to say...Custer had a couple of those, too, from what I'm told...

Anyway, my bad experience was back in third grade with Sr. Roch (pronounced ROCK), and yes, she was as tough as it sounds. The students called her "Sargeant Rock". She came from a large family. Her siblings had occupied all branches of the military between them. Sr. Roch was built like a man with broad, muscular shoulders and a harsh look of authority on her face. When a student failed in some way, her weapons of choice included: slaps on the head, face or behind. She also pulled hair and, in one instance, her fist came-away with a handful of the student's locks. (Richard Jr.: there was one instance I remember when she tried to pull the hair of your brother, Greg, but she couldn't because he had a crew-cut, so his hair was too short for her to get ahold of). I'm sorry to say I did not complete all 12 years at Sacred Heart because Sr. Roch finally went too far with me: I sustained a small cut on my back resulting from her shoving me into the front of a locker after she had already spanked me. I then spent the next year and a half at Lincoln elementary to escape her clutches before returning. Soon after that, some other parents finally complained and she was brought before the pastor and schoolboard...they should have fired her and had her stripped of her teaching license! But she was given a warning and I guess she stopped the violence after that. Anyway, she was pretty athletic, too...one of her favorite things to do at recess was to go to the big side-yard next to the convent and hit baseballs out for students to catch. She could hit the ball nearly across that entire yard, too. There was a picture of her doing that on the front page of the Star one year. Anyway, enough about that.

Dan Connors...never had him as a coach, but I wish I had. I used to visit him often after his career at SH when he was the coach as MCC and I had to interview him for my sports reports at KATL. He was always pleasant and jolly, his wife Sue was a sweet lady as well, and I've yet to meet a child of theirs I didn't like. God rest, Dan and Sue.

Overall my experiences at Sacred Heart were pretty good...could have done withour Sr. Roch, though.

I presume the principal, Mr. Freese, is running a tighter ship at the school now.

I think it would be a looser ship.

""Sacred Heart Pops Choir"...did you enjoy wearing that black disco outfit with the satin green vest, and singing "You Light Up My Life"??? "

That was a pretty unforgettable day. Earlier in that day I was at the District FFA convention where I won 1st place in the public speaking competition. I arrived for the concert and had like five minutes to change from my FFA clothes to the "disco outfit". I was still pretty excited about my win and so it was really hard to pay attention to "you light up my life".

Sr. Roch was a Vikings fan and was tough enough to put Alan Page (a.k.a. the purple people eater) in a chokehold. It was shortly after the hair pulling incident that Greg got to transfer to Kirtcher school, which is still a sore subject with me. Oh well, life goes on.

I had Dan Connors for economics in 8th grade. We had a book called "Life on Paradise Island". It was a pretty fun class... although I didn't like and augured a lot with his democrat from Butte, MT perspective.

[This message has been edited by Richard Bonine, Jr (edited 3/6/2008).]

I'd like to add one more mention of GOOD teachers, rather than having the trauma of "Sargeant Roch" as my last word....

He never was officially listed as a Sacred Heart Coach. but Mr. John Harasymczuk volunteered as the high school wrestling coach for several years...I'm not positive about this, but I think he was an unpaid volunteer. He was a GREAT coach: made the wrestlers work hard and was kind-of the strong, silent type who also gave good, positive encouragement. A good-hearted person, Coach H. never asked what was in it for him. I have the feeling that one of his proudest moments was having the pleasure of coaching 98-pound Tony Cline to a state championship in 1986 before the high school closed. Tony was one of only 3 individual state champs the high school ever had...his brother Pat won 3rd place at state the year before at 112. John's son, Dave, also volunteered coaching the wrestlers a couple years...Dave was a funny guy and an interesting character, but made us work hard, too.

Before Mr. Harasymczuk (sorry if that's spelled wrong, by the way), the wrestlers had coach Jim Killen. I never had him as a teacher or coach myself but I know my late brother, Ben, liked him a lot. Coach Killen enjoyed joking that Ben looked like Al Pacino among other things. Mr. Killen was also kind enough to attend Ben's funeral after he passed in 1998.

A few Sacred Heart alums might chuckle at my bringing her up, but Sr. Marianne Eck was a much better teacher than I think most of us gave her credit for. A few people used to poke fun at her, but she really was a smart lady and very knowledgeable about science...there were times that maybe she wasn't "all there", but she was kind. I don't remember her being mean at all.

And of course, how can we forget Coach Glenn Hageman: the only coach to ever bring the Shamrock football team to a state championship? He did this in 1980 and he did it with no assistant coaches. He was a pretty good teacher of civics and history, too. Thanks, coach!

This is probably long before some of your times but want to mention some of my favorite teachers of the past from SHHS. My time there was from 1947 through 1951 in which we had the Ursaline nuns that lived at the convent and we called them "mother" - The one that taught me the most for my lifes occupation was Mother Marian who taught typing, shorthand and bookkeeping. She did such a good job that I am still complimented on some of my letters I write. I also remember fondly of Mother Ida as our Freshman class sponsor. What a women! Fr. Geisen was the principal at the school and he also taught religion, band, was the sports coach, etc. A "jack of all trades"- he was very firm but kind. I could go on with my memories of the SHHS but better close for this snippet. Betty Carter O'Brien

Maybe someone here remembers who was the basketball coach during the mid-1960s. I was dating a guy (Doug Larson) who graduated in 1965 and their basketball team won the state championship in Helena that year. Great memories of traveling to Helena for the championship game.

i remember my Kindergarten teacher, Mrs.Haynes, had her birthday the same day as me.

Mrs. Stanley taught me that grammar is great, but grammpar is great too
and i remember that she wouldn't let me enter the classroom without first telling a joke.

Mr. Freese was probably my favorite teacher. And not just because he played hackysac with us at recess.

Maybe someone here remembers who was the basketball coach during the mid-1960s. I was dating a guy (Doug Larson) who graduated in 1965 and their basketball team won the state championship in Helena that year. Great memories of traveling to Helena for the championship game.

I vaguely remember the "buzz" over this event at Sunday mass. I don't remember the coach's name. Dan Conners, Harold Schwan, and Glenn Hageman were the coaches when I was there. Not sure who coached before Mr. Conners time. May have been Monsignor Hennessy for all I know.

Don Niklas was the coach the last year I attended SHHS (1956) but don't know if he was still coach in the early 1960' b/c I went to Custer the next year. He was single when he came to SHHS and married the women's coach (Mary Jean Cate).

I had Sister Roch in 3rd and 5th grade. She was a good teacher and expected you to pay attention. Sr. Antonella certainly left an impression on me. "Why do we have to learn Latin?" "Because it instills discilpine." Okay, but she was dedicated to the school and teaching. Ms. Goaders (sp?) my 4th grade teacher was one of the best teachers I've had through grade, middle, high school, and college. She took such a postive interest and expressed care for her students. Father Ponessa was amasing. I remember talking religion while watching Carl Sagan's 'Cosmos'. He wasn't affraid to discuss religion and science. SHHS was a great experience and it was sad the HS closed on what would have been my senior year, but the lessons learned have stayed with me to this day.

Sr Antonella was the toughest teacher, but probably my favorite because she prepared me for college level courses. I'll never forget when we (speech) class convinced her to go to Dairy queen for ice cream, not just once, but 2-3 times.

Glen Hageman was fun for German class, Sr Kathleen was strict but good at science. Bev David was okay but I agree with Shu on Terry Annalora being a great music teacher.

Kathy Olsen was my favorite overall in 5th grade.

Terry Analora by far is a great inspirational power but you cannot forget the name Terharr. Because I know Terry can't. I hope I spelled it right.

There are very very very few people that I've known that I haven't felt some degree of sadness upon hearing of their passing.

My fifth grade teacher at SH was one of them.

I had Sister Roch in 3rd and 5th grade. She was a good teacher and expected you to pay attention.

Mike, you may very-well be in the minority on that one. Sr. Roch did NOT have to use violence to get students to pay attention the way she did.

To be fair, though, you were a year behind me, so your 3rd grade year came AFTER Sr. Roch was brought before Fr. O'Reilly and the school board and chastised for her medieval methods. As I said in my earlier post, she stopped the violence after that. Sr. Roch did teach my 6th grade History/Social Studies class while our regular teacher, Sr. Donna Garrets, tended to her morning principal duties. The Sargeant was still firm with us at that time, but not violent like she was 3 years prior...I still didn't like her, though.

There are very very very few people that I've known that I haven't felt some degree of sadness upon hearing of their passing.

My fifth grade teacher at SH was one of them.

Since you brought it up, I don't suppose you'd care to say who that was, would you Bridgier???...No?

You know who was a mean teacher back in my high school days at Sacred Heart? The music teacher, Mrs. Wood. MAN! Was she ever a battle-axe! She used to threaten to smash us on our noggins with steel chairs in choir class if we failed to hit our notes on-time and on-tone. She was harsh! Actually, I had sort-of a love-hate relationship with your momma, Bridgier...there was one instance when she called our house to check with my mom about church music for an upcoming mass and I answered the phone, recognized her voice and mockingly called to my mom within earshot of the phone: "Mom, phone for you! It sounds like Mrs. Wood, do you want me to hang-up on her?"

Both ladies were laughing when my mom answered the phone.

I'd be willing to bet that I could get a couple "Shuman Pius" stories out of mom as well.

As for the other.. no. I'm not going to name any names - I'm pretty sure anyone who passed through SH elementary in the early to middle '80's knows who I'm talking about.

I remember a nun called Sister Vincent Farrah (sp) that I had in the 8th grade. We called her Sister Vincent Pharoah. When we misbehaved she would line us up against the wall at recess and we would stand there and then she would line us up and march us in. Others not in the lineup would sing "Pharoah set my people free" and then the singers put would be added the lineup. She used to hold Butch Granz by the arm durng recess to keep him out of trouble. We also had a head nun my freshman/softmore years who was pretty mean and I can't remember her name. Father Lapke was who was the principal at that time was pretty mean. There was a young priest who I can't remember who was a good guy. He convinced the school to allow the catholic kids who went to Custer to come to our dances. We had a nun who was an art teacher who was really great. Mr. Cadlo had some problems but he was nice to me. As I was leaving later to join the navy I happened to be on the same train to Chicago with him and he gave me a great talk about being a man. I'll always remember him. There was another non nun teacher, a lady from the Terry area who was a great teacher. Can't remember here name. I was a hell raiser in high school and got what I deserved as punihsment by all the nuns. I graduated in 1966.

It was before my time, but the Sacred Heart basketball coach in 1965 (the year they won State) was Dan Connors. Harold Schwann came later (late 1960s or early '70s), and then Glenn Hageman by the late 1970s.

The best player on that 1965 team was Marty Derrig, who's about 6'4" and was very talented. For a few years in the mid- to late-1980s SHHS had an alumni tournament over Christmas vacation. In 1985, my brother Daren (who's also about 6'4" and had just graduated in '84) was playing in that tournament on the '84-85 team against a team of alums from the 1965 team. I figured the young guys would run those old men into the ground (I was 12 at the time - now that I'm 37, or about the same age as the "old men" were at the time, I realize maybe they weren't so old after all). Of course, I was wrong. The old guys blew out Daren's team, and Marty Derrig scored 27 (I think Daren had 8). After the game, my dad asked Daren if he'd ever met Marty Derrig before. Daren said, "I met him tonight." That answer's always cracked me up.

By the way, someone mentioned Reed Reyman earlier - he's a great guy and was my 7th grade math and P.E. teacher at SHHS, the last year it was open. I also remember him telling the class once about how, when he was just little, he saw SHHS lose its only game of the season in that 1965 championship year. They lost at Terry (where Reed is from), and he said Connors was so mad he got two technicals in that game.

Somebody also mentioned earlier that Glenn Hageman coached SHHS to its only state football championship in 1980 (my brother Conan was a junior on that team). Glenn's a great guy and has gone on to be a very successful school administrator around the state. All respect and thanks to him for helping SHHS bring home the title that year.

It should be remembered, however, that SHHS most likely would have won several state Class B football titles in the 1960s and '70s, much of which time they were coached by Dan Connors - except that back then, there was no state championship for Class B football. You could win your division, which SHHS did many times, then the season was over. Considering that the football team won 99 conference games in a row during one stretch (think about that - an entire class went from 1st grade through high school graduation without ever seeing SHHS lose a conference game), it seems likely that they also would've won state during some of those seasons.

So who did they lose that 100th game to? It wasn't the Chester Coyotes was it?

They lost what would've been their 100th consecutive conference win to the Broadus Hawks. I'd always heard they lost 6-0, but a few years ago I finally saw the actual score and it was more like 36-8... not close at all.

Since it was a very unflattering post toward her, I thought it was nice of Bridgier not to name his 5th grade teacher, even though there was at least one poster who asked for it. I won't divulge the name, either, but I was just two years ahead of Bridgier and had the same lady as my 5th grade teacher. Like Bridgier said, most people who went through Sacred Heart elementary in the mid-'80s would remember her.
She was a stereotypical drill sergeant-type teacher... lots of screaming, yelling, browbeating over any infraction of the rules in her class or at school. She also had asthma, and after 5 or 10 minutes berating the class (which happened at least once a week, it seemed) she'd always have to go take a hit on her inhaler.... I don't know about Bridgier's class, but we were always plotting (never followed through, of course) to hide her inhaler, then get her mad on purpose so she wouldn't have it when she needed it (this was one of those plans I'm really glad we didn't carry out, because it really would've been evil - or at least pretty nasty - to do something like that). So, yeah... she was often over-the-top and out of line. As an educator today, if I was a principal with a teacher like that, she'd have to mellow out her behavior right away or she'd be gone. That said...
In fairness to her, I do have a couple of nice things to say about the woman. One, she was completely different (read: nice) outside of school - very friendly and seemed to genuinely care about her students as people. And, she did get us to perform in the classroom - I got the best grades that year that I'd ever had up to that time, and probably better than I ever did again (until college), and I know most of my friends said their grades were better that year, too.
So, if any other veterans of her class are out there and are reading this, I hope you'll remember the good points about her, too. She certainly had plenty of faults, and maybe we saw more bad than good from her... but there was some good, and I wanted to give her credit for that.

[This message has been edited by Sean D. (4/4/2011)]

She was a completely different person outside of school - which, for me, made it even worse.

Hmmmm, In 1966.....Sr. Antonita, Fr. Ron Haverlandt, and Mrs. Devlin. How about asking things like who was Jake Snerd, or who loved to torment kids about Two Dot, MT? Then of course, the perrenial question, Why did the girls all have to sit in the front of an English teacher's room, and in the back in a coach/history teacher's room?