The "Lucked Out" Story

It was an ordinary day. I had just signed my teaching contract with MTHS which is where I graduated from. I was teaching at York Eastern at the time that I signed with MTHS. The traveling to York every day was getting boring and I needed something closer to home. The story of the beginning of my teaching career goes pretty much like this.......in high school I was an average student. My parents thought I should be the first in our family to go to college so I had to take college prep courses in school. Didn’t do too bad, but courses such as Chemistry and Latin weren’t my favorite. I didn’t know a single person who spoke Latin and memorizing the Periodic Table of Elements seemed to be a waste of time. I managed to survive and in my senior year I started looking for a college to attend. Price was and issue since I would have to pay for most of my education. The local college was Millersville State College and I filled out an application for this school. I received notice that I should call for an interview at Millersville to see what the possibilities of attending this school might be. The day of the interview I dressed in a coat and tie and went to meet with a college official. He asked why I wanted to attend college and I responded as I stated here. He studied my school records and said to me, “you really want to be a math teacher?” “Sure, that’s what I’m best at.” He then asked, “have you ever heard of Industrial Arts?” “No, what is that.” He proceeded to tell me that it was teaching manual arts or shop and that the State of Pennsylvania was in dire need of shop teachers. At that moment I became a shop teacher!! Did very well at MSTC except for the courses they made me take such as Chemistry and History. The history I needed to graduate so I took it 3 times. Not because I loved it that much, but because it took me that many times to find a teacher who needed things in his house fixed. After 4 years I needed one more semester to graduate, but they needed shop teachers so bad that I had 5 offers even before I graduated. Took the job at York on an Emergency Certificate. I was living at home when I started teaching and my brother Steve was a Senior at MTHS. He was a super basketball player and his coach was George E. who was also the chairman of the Industrial Arts Dept. I asked Steve to ask his coach if he had any openings in his department. At supper the next night Steve said, “Mr. Ehemann said I could have a job.” JUST LIKE THAT. Mr. Ehemann really loved my brother!!! Well, I went out the next week and signed the contract. JUST LIKE THAT. I was now a shop teacher at good ole MTHS. It was an extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.