Recruited and retired Timnath teacher hangs tough

By Dan MacArthur
Fossil Creek Current

Beverly Schuelke looks back with pride on her 29-year career as completion nears on the new school dedicated to the man who recruited the reluctant teacher.

"Paul Bethke was one of my favorite people in education. He was the best," Schuelke said of the respected long-time state and local educator, for whom Timnath's new elementary school will be named.

Schuelke considers it an appropriate honor for the man who brought out the best in her and those around him. He recognized her potential when he called one Sunday evening some 50 years ago. Bethke, whom Schuelke knew since he taught her brothers at the Harmony School, asked whether she would help him out of jam. Could she show up the next morning as a substitute teacher?

Despite her degree in vocational home economics and experience as a home demonstration agent for the Cooperative Extension Service, Schuelke had doubts about her ability.

Bethke didn't. Pointing to her leadership of a church youth group, "He said, 'I think you can do it,'" Schuelke said. "So the next day I was teaching first grade, trembling, not knowing what first grade was all about."

"I did my best, tried to help each one and at the end of two days they were crying because they wanted me back," she continued. "The rest of the year I substituted in every grade level."

Bethke's call came at an opportune time for Schuelke and her family, too. They had lost a fortune when cattle prices declined by half in the first year of operating the farm they owned for 56 years located just north of the Fort Collins-Loveland Airport.

Digging out of the debt required serious economizing that similarly challenged her considerable sewing skills. "When it got down to four patches on his overalls it was getting a little bit tiring," she said. "So I appreciated the four or five dollars a day to buy some new overalls or some fabric to make my girls some dresses."

But more than money, that introduction to education led to a new career that touched the lives of virtually every child who attended the small country school.

It started just as suddenly as before when Schuelke got a call from Bethke on the first day of the new school year. Did she want to teach full-time? She asked for time to think it over, and he grudgingly agreed.

"He said I'd like to know now, but I'll give you 15 minutes," Schuelke recalled.

She quickly agreed to take on the fifth grade and eventually taught all three of her daughters, Janet, Judy and Joy.

"Their fifth-grade teacher didn't destroy them," Schuelke said with a laugh, noting that all of them went into teaching or related professions.

Robert Dickinson was another of the survivors who stay in touch with Schuelke. One of her first rambunctious crop of students, he remains a friend and neighbor who still farms adjacent to the remnants of Schuelke's property.

An amiable man sporting a John Deere cap, Dickinson offered an unexpected memory of Schuelke while visiting at her assisted-living apartment comfortably disheveled with piles of publications and quilt squares.

"She taught us to knit and crochet," he said, a notable accomplishment for a man with hands made thick and powerful by hard work.

"We sang all day long, at least in my class," Schuelke said. A song followed the Pledge of Allegiance in the mornings, with others related to the subjects throughout the day.

That's not to suggest Scheulke's classes were all fun and games. Many of her students went on to achieve academic excellence at Fort Collins High School and continued to earn advanced degrees.

Schuelke remains sharp and engaged in quilting despite an increasing series of challenges. She underwent double heart bypass surgery almost 20 years ago and a bypass of those bypasses eight years later.

Her beloved husband, George, whom she married just before he went off to the war, died in 2003. And Schuelke undergoes dialysis treatments three times a week that leave her drained.

But still she perseveres.

"I'm kind of tough," she said. "The Lord has more things for me to do."