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Retiring city educators find learning is a lifelong lesson >
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By JULIE BLUM/Telegram Staff Writer
COLUMBUS - If there is anything Phyllis Brunken
has appreciated through her career in education it is those people
who dedicate themselves to being lifelong learners.
"Seeing children and adults continue to
learn is the most important thing," Brunken said.
She is one of those people who never ceases when
the opportunity to gain more knowledge and challenge herself educationally
arises.
Even now, after her teaching career is coming
to an end due to retirement, Brunken has still been actively pursuing
her passion for learning. It was only a few years ago that the
56-year-old earned her fourth college degree in K-12 principalship
and administration.
She accomplished that, as well as attaining a
masters degree in educational administration, during the past
20 years she has spent serving as the director of media/technology
at the Educational Service Unit 7 in Columbus.
But soon after this school year is over, Brunken
will be leaving the ESU and, with her husband, Ron, a Columbus
Middle School science teacher, will be moving to Omaha.
Together the two will be taking a combined
64 years of educational experience with them.
Both Phyllis and Ron, 57, are graduates of Columbus
High School. The two met while attending a summer dance in 1963.
Four years later they married.
Phyllis spent many of her early years as a media
specialist and library aide at various libraries and schools,
including Laurel Public School, where Ron was a science teacher.
Ron said that first job he had when he was 22
is full of memories, but more so serves as a reminder of what
being a teacher is all about.
"What I remember about it was all the mistakes
I made," he said. "There is a fine line between teacher
and student. I tried to be their friend."
Ron moved on to various schools including Nebraska
City Public, Stella Public and Silver Creek Public before he began
teaching at the middle school in 1986.
Phyllis, though, remained working in libraries,
including at the Nebraska School for the Visually Handicapped
in Nebraska City.
There she served as media specialist. She is
also credited with helping develop a computer lab for the students.
The specially designed computers in the lab would read back to
the students what they typed and could print out what the students
typed in either English or Braille.
Phyllis said one of the greatest things she learned
while working there was helping raise the confidence level of
the students. Because many of those students came from the public
school system, where they had failed, they thought of themselves
as failures.
But the inclusion of the computer lab enabled
the students with a unique opportunity to learn, Phyllis said,
and their self-confidence grew.
After spending 10 years at the school, Phyllis
moved on to ESU 7 in 1984.
During the last two decades there, she has overseen
the functions of the media center, technology center, and production
and art media services, designed workshops for school personnel
and established an express printing service for Columbus, Lakeview
and Scotus. She also helped get the distance learning program
up and running in Columbus two years ago.
With Phyllis at the ESU and Ron in the classroom
at the middle school, the two said it created a relationship where
the two could learn from each other.
"Ron has been really good for me. You tend
to forget what is going on in the front line. He provides a valuable
resource for me," Phyllis said.
Ron said he has kept up to date with technology
because of Phyllis. But, the most important thing she has taught
him has come within the last four years when Phyllis was diagnosed
with dermatomyositis, a muscle disease caused by an immune system
response.
She was diagnosed with the disease in 2000 and
has had to be on oxygen for the last two years.
During that time, Ron said, Phyllis hasn't slowed
down and has continued in her passion for education.
"The best thing is she is a model to be
a lifelong learner and to be positive no matter what," he
said.
When Phyllis was told what she had, she said
she began to plan her retirement. When she turned 55, she would
have been able to retire at an early age because of Rule of 85,
a benefit passed that allows those in education to retire early
with unreduced benefits as long as their age and number of years
of service equal 85.
It also happened that when Phyllis reached that
magic number of 85, Ron, would be eligible to retire early, too.
But retirement isn't quite in the future for
Ron, yet. Once he and Phyllis move to Omaha to be near their children,
Brian and Amy, and their grandchildren, he will teach seventh
and eighth grade science at a school there.
Even though she plans to spend much of her time
being a "grandma taxi" for her grandsons Logan and Nathan
once she is retired, Phyllis won't put her love of learning on
hold. She is going to be a course manager/instructor for a web-based
course on Library Advocacy for Mansfeld University in Pennsylvania.
Reach Julie Blum at 563-7535 or jblum@columbustelegram.com.
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