Principal Lundt returning to mountain time

By Brenda Rader Mross
North Forty News

The old saying about how you can take the girl out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the girl isn't applicable only to flatlanders.

The mountains have had a lifelong hold on retiring Poudre High School Principal Sandra Lundt, a fifth generation Coloradan who was born and raised in Poudre Canyon.

"It seems like a fairy tale now," Lundt said, her gaze faraway, "a different lifetime."

Lundt's parents, Stanley and Lola Case, owned and operated Arrowhead Lodge for 40 years. The Cases chose to winter on the Front Range so their three daughters could attend high school in Fort Collins. Until then, Sheryl, Christy and Sandra lived in the mountains year-round, attending Eggers, a kindergarten through eighth grade, one-room log cabin school.

Eggers School was later replaced by a new building and renamed Poudre Canyon School.

Sandra, the youngest, spent her fourth-grade year at the first school built in Fort Collins back in 1879, Remington Elementary. In 1960, when 33 Larimer County school districts consolidated into three, resulting boundary changes moved her as a fifth-grader to Dunn Elementary and then to Washington Elementary for sixth grade.

"I hated school," Lundt said bluntly. "It was painful to come to Fort Collins. To this day, every weekend I'm in the mountains, coming down Sunday afternoons I get a gut ache."

It was understandably overwhelming for the mountain girl to suddenly find herself in a class of 36 when she was used to maybe 14 students in the whole school. Often, it was just two per grade, she said, mostly girls.

"We used to joke that one of us was in the top 50 percent, the other in the bottom," Lundt laughed. "More optimistically, one of us would claim she was valedictorian, the other salutatorian."

Lundt describes the mountain school community as "one big family."

"We looked after each other; we really loved each other," recalled Lundt. "The older kids taught the younger kids. We did things nobody else got to do, even if there was no music, no art, no PE. We didn't know any different. Life was the best it could ever be."

Fond memories for Lundt include skating on the Poudre River and nightly volleyball games at the lodge in which residents up and down the canyon would participate. She said Christmas programs were very special because everybody performed. Pie socials and Halloween parties were not to be missed.

Friday movie nights at the lodge were another beloved routine, with proceeds going back to the community.

"When you came to the lodge, you were family," Lundt said. "I owe a lot to Mom and Dad for who I am. It was from them I got my work ethic and love for people."

Stanley Case died in 1995, one month prior to the publication of his book, "The Poudre: A Photo History." Lundt reports every PSD media center has a copy of the electrical engineer's 468-page historical compilation.

Lola Case died in 2000, and is remembered by her baby girl as one who loved to work hard and play just as hard.

"It really was whatever Lola wants, Lola gets," Lundt said with a smile. "Mom and Dad were always both so positive, no matter what. 'We'll work it out,' they'd say, and they always did."

Lundt credits her folks' encouragement for helping her transition through elementary school into Lincoln Junior High, Poudre High School and later Colorado State University.

As an Impala, Lundt was a singer in choir, a percussionist in band and a pom-pom girl.

"That was before Title IX and girl sports, so the only choice was to be a cheerleader," Lundt said. "I came to love it, though, and student council, and Poudre."

Music classes were among her favorites, as was a senior humanities class, the school's only advanced placement offering. By the way, Lundt is an accomplished pianist, who in her early administrative years served as the accompanist at PHS. She still plays for Poudre Canyon Chapel, celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.

Lundt was a student at Poudre before Rocky Mountain High School was built, so there were about 1,100 students when she was enrolled.

"We had a dress code then," she reminisced. "We wore dresses but this was in the era of short dresses. I remember having to kneel down in the lunch line to make sure our hems touched the ground."

Did Lundt even once imagine while a student at PHS that she would eventually become principal there?

"I didn't have anything in mind," Lundt claimed. "I never saw myself in education until my junior year in college after I did an internship at Irish (Elementary). I never, ever saw myself in administration. That was Reed's doing."

Reed Pope was principal at Poudre in the fall of 1979 when Lundt got on as a full-time physical educator teacher and head volleyball coach. Previously, she held a part-time PE/coaching job at Wellington Junior High until a similar full-time position opened up at Blevins Junior High.

Apparently, Pope saw something in Sandra Lundt she didn't see herself: leadership ability. When he asked her to become activities director, Lundt asked him, "So what does that mean?"

"Reed would tell me, 'One day you're going to be principal of this high school,' but (administration) was not a passion; I loved coaching," Lundt said. "It almost broke my heart to quit, but I went back to school and got my certificate over four or five summers."

Lundt was assistant principal for 10 years before becoming principal for the past 16 years. She and Pope still have coffee together once a month, "so he can make sure we're still blue and silver."

Looking back, Lundt said, 1994-95 stands out as the year Poudre doubled its square footage. Being ranked in 2005 by Newsweek magazine as one of the top U.S. high schools is also a career highlight.

Ensuring the safety of students and the building since Columbine and 9/11 is a huge challenge, but she credits Poudre's "incredible staff" for making her job so much easier. Senior Assistant Principal George Osborne will be Poudre's principal next year.

At 55, Lundt is retiring at a relatively young age, but she decided she was ready to do other things, one of which is to sleep late.

"I'm tired of Jack sleeping in when the alarm goes off at 5 a.m.," she kidded.

Jack Lundt taught at Lesher Junior High School, Fort Collins High School and PHS before retiring two years ago, although he has continued to coach Poudre's nationally recognized science team. The two were high school sweethearts whose first date was to a Poudre homecoming dance. The Lundts married in 1975 and lived in Hayden near Steamboat Springs for six months before coming to Poudre School District.

"We had no money and no place to live so we stayed in one of the log cabins at Arrowhead," Lundt said. "We had no running water, no heat. We hunted and trapped. It was like we were born 150 years too late."

Lundt said until she was about 30 years old, she and her husband worked every summer at the lodge, cooking, waiting tables, cleaning cabins.

"We still own Mom and Dad's house, and I'm on the church board," Lundt said. "Community is very important to me. I've been asked by a thousand people to do this or that, but I'm not making any commitments."

Except to fly fish, backpack with llamas, and play the piano more.

The couple also plan to travel to New Zealand, Costa Rica and the Galapagos Islands.

While the Lundts have no children of their own, Sandra said, "I have 1,800 children. And no regrets. My life has been so blessed."

One thing's for sure: After the 2008-09 school year ends, Lundt will be heading for the hills.