A Lifetime of Lifelines

By Annelise Paczesny, Current Staff

The West Bend High Schools student council will soon need to find new blood.

After teaching science for 30 years, and advising student council for the majority of the past 22 years, Skip Clark is retiring in June. He has contributed in countless ways to many student council events, especially Charity Week and the annual Blood Drive, which under his guidance has become one of the largest in Wisconsin. This year’s event is Thursday and Clark is looking forward to making the drive as successful as possible. He encourages everyone to sign up if they are eligible, through this link or the QR codes posted around the school and sent home via email.

EAST SCIENCE TEACHER SKIP CLARK

About being a student council (STUCO) adviser: My favorite thing that I like the most is the ability to see kids outside the classroom. I get to see them inside the classroom and how great they are academically, but then I get to see a different part of them. I get to see them being leaders, I get to see them being philanthropic, I get to see them trying to do something above and beyond themselves, whereas a lot of times just in the classroom, I get to see them work with other people. With STUCO, I get to see a whole different component of the students, and see the big picture of who they truly are.

STUCO event: That’s a tough one. I would narrow it down to Charity Week and the Blood Drive. Both of those are events that students get an opportunity to go beyond themselves and open up a little empathy and compassion for others in our community. I’ve loved how Charity Week has blossomed. It started off as just an idea, and it’s blossomed into multiple organizations reaching out to us asking to be a part of it. It’s become kind of a fabric of our school as well as the community. I love the blood drive because it’s a little piece of everybody that has an opportunity to give back to the community.

Working the blood drive: My favorite thing is walking around and talking to the people. Sometimes I meet parents of my students, and I get to talk to them and learn a little bit about their lives. I love walking around and talking to the students and thanking them for being a part of this day. I like watching my STUCO students interact with other people, making a difference. Ultimately, at the very end, my greatest gift is reaching our goal. When we reach our goal I feel we’ve done our job for our community as well as the people in our area.

Favorite charity from Charity Week: We’ve had so many great ones. A personal one for me is one year we had ALS, which is Lou Gehrig’s disease, which is something my mother died from. Being one of her caregivers as she was going through it, it was really neat because we had the regional director (my mother was actually the state representative for ALS) and it was neat that we could highlight that. It was probably 15 years ago, when my mom was diagnosed with it, and just getting the world out about it, that it affects people–it had a very personal attachment to me, and we raised a lot of money for it.

Memory from STUCO: One of my most recent highlights was last year. We set a record for Charity Week. When we had the check presentation, it was really cool to see the businesses come in, as well as organizations we were donating to. We had over 60-70 people along with the students presenting the checks, and we raised over $62,000. That was neat seeing everyone working together. One of my favorite ones was when we had a Christmas party where we had a lock-in, probably one of my first years, 25 years ago. We took a bus all around and we slept overnight at the bowling center, we went to the YMCA, we rented out a movie theater, so we spent 10 straight hours just team-building and getting to know each other, and laughing. It was 25 years ago and I can still see it perfectly in my mind.

Scientist: I have a liver disease and my favorite scientist is Dr. Franco, who is doing cutting-edge research on my particular disease. I meet with him a couple times a year, and see how hard and passionate he is about something that affects me directly. I respect men and women who spend countless hours in the laboratory trying to help other people. He’s my favorite scientist and hopefully he can find something that can help out with my disease.

Subject to teach: I love teaching anatomy. Anatomy is something that I am passionate about. When I went to dental school, I took a lot of anatomy. I didn’t have an opportunity to teach it for many years, but when I did, it was a real passion of mine. I do love chemistry, too. I have a double major in biology and chemistry, then I went to dental school. It’s a toss-up right now. I’ve got amazing kids in all my classes. Chemistry and anatomy are tied.

About teaching: For me, it’s the relationships I get to make with students and families, and getting to see kids outside of the classroom. Last year I (served as a sponsor for) my 18th confirmation, so I get to see students in multiple different ways. A lot of them I’ve gone on to become friends with as they’ve gotten older, I have students in their mid-forties, I have kids with kids, it’s neat to see them being born and raised in West Bend, coming back to West Bend to teach, doing great in the community. My favorite thing is just being a part of watching West Bend grow, thrive, and succeed, and knowing I have a small part in making someone’s life better.

Memory from teaching: Thirty years is a lot! I’ve had some great memories. The one that pops into my mind right away is when I had a competition with all my classes. One year, I was teaching five anatomy classes, and we ran a blood drive competition to see which class could get the most donors. I threw them a party at my parents’ house. I cooked them dinner. It was right before Christmastime, and every single kid showed up. I didn’t think they would all show up, but all 27 of them showed up. We had dinner, we watched a movie, and we did skits. I still have the skits. We split up into a bunch of groups and I gave them all a theme that they picked out of a hat. They had to use props and develop skits. They all did it and I taped it. We played hide and seek in my parents’ house, which was just a blast. I still have kids that will email me and write me back and say that was one of their highlights in high school. They’re all probably in their mid-thirties now.

(Top image: Skip Clark in his anatomy classroom. Photo by Annelise Paczesny, Current Staff.)

The West Bend Current