By Penny Leuthard, Staff Writer 

 

Teachers can make lasting impacts on their students’ lives. One Clearview Elementary teacher who did so is Deb (Giesen) Finn, or Miss Giesen as she was known as, who taught there from 1977 to 1987.

Nearly 10 years ago, Giesen ran into a former student of hers, Nadine Meyer, at a conference they were both attending in Minneapolis. They started talking, and Meyer ended up teaching her how to use Facebook. 

Giesen began reaching out to her other former students through social media, and today boasts 350 of them as Facebook “friends.” Wanting to connect with them again in person, the idea of a Clearview alumni reunion was born, and on July 15 around 75 former students and 12 teachers gathered at the school, some of whom hadn’t seen one another since their days as classmates.

“Miss Giesen inspired me creatively and in my writing,” said Meyer, who today is a science educator. “I was pretty introverted, and her encouragement to be in the plays she put on really brought me out of my shell. She’s the reason I chose to go into education.”

Meyer and fellow student Linda Anderson were members of the last class Giesen taught at Clearview.

“I remember she [Giesen] always wrote a story that incorporated every child’s first and last name in it at the sixth-grade graduations,” said Anderson. “She and Mr. Lee (another sixth-grade teacher) felt it was important we had life experiences, so we went on a trip to the Iron Range and the North Shore, and even drove across the Canadian border just so we could say we’d been there.”

Ken Holtz was a classmate of Meyer and Anderson.  

“Miss Giesen would put on all these plays, and even the boys would sing and wear makeup,” he remembered. 

Husband and wife Wally and Mary Jo (Lindmeier) Schaefer met at Clearview, although they didn’t start dating until they were attending Tech High School in St. Cloud. 

“I met my best friend, Bill Peterson, in kindergarten here,” said Wally Schaefer. 

“I was crying because I’d messed up my arm and had started school late,” said Peterson. “Wally came up and showed me around.” 

Some of the attendees’ favorite stories revolved around the black chairs that used to sit by the front doors outside the principal’s office. When students were sent to the office they had to sit in the chairs to wait. Everyone passing by knew why a student was sitting there, which was a worse punishment than what they received from the principal.

The third time a student got sent to the principal’s office they got the paddle, which was nicknamed “The Board of Education.”

The puke-a-lator (mini merry-go-round) and “Dirt Mountain,” which many of the teachers had students run around for punishment, were also among the memories shared during the event.

Nancy Asp, who taught fifth grade at Clearview from 1980 to 1982, was one of the teachers who attended the reunion. Her position at Clearview was her first teaching job. Char Thelen, who taught first, second and fourth grade at the school from 1975 to 2010, also attended.

“You just feel like you’ve come home here at Clearview,” she said.

Garrett Jordahl, Troy Mansell and Francine Curtis were at Clearview together and have remained close friends ever since.

“I moved here in fifth grade from St. Paul,” said Jordahl. “It was really a big shock how inviting everyone was. Troy and Paul [Radeke] were the first two people to befriend me here.”

“We’re like a family here today,” said Mansell. “Deb Giesen would be in my top three people that influenced me. All these people are here for her.”