Smith Valley's main man stepping down

After 40 years in education, Smith Valley School Principal Mike Welling has decided to retire.

“It’s time to call it a career,” he said.

Welling, 62, has spent 36 years teaching students in the Smith Valley area. He will retire June 30, a date some staff members already are dreading. To the teachers who have worked with Welling for two decades or more, it’s impossible to picture Smith Valley without him.

“I can’t imagine not having him here,” said Title I teacher Kathy Norlander, who has worked with Welling since 1979. “It will be like we’re at the wrong school.”

Whether working as a math and history teacher, a head teacher or a principal, Welling has inspired students and staff alike, she said. Staff members feel “like a big family,” and students know Welling is around for more than just discipline.

He puts on a morning math competition and invites students to visit him when they correctly answer problems. He reads to students and encourages them to read; last fall he promised to spend the night on the school roof if students read a certain number of pages.

He would have kept that promise if an autumn thunderstorm hadn’t driven him off the roof, Norlander said.

“It’s nice that he makes contact with them other than the principal discipline thing,” she said.

Welling has known since his junior year of high school that he wanted to be a teacher. While growing up in Pennsylvania, he had figured he would pursue business. The company he worked for in high school offered to pay his way at Northwestern University while he earned his degree.

But while studying at school one day, Welling knew he wanted to be a teacher. Now, decades later, he can’t articulate what he knew that day. He simply knew teaching was for him.

After earning his teaching degree from Penn State, Welling took a job teaching high school science in Ohio. Two years later, he and his wife, Mary, moved to Missouri, where he taught science in a school about the size of Hot Springs.

They were inching their way west, something Mary had wanted at least since they were married. After vacationing in the Flathead Valley, it seemed they had found home.

“We came out here one summer just on vacation. We ended up buying a piece of property in Marion and staying,” Welling said, laughing.

Both found jobs — she with the U.S. Postal Service and he at Batavia School.

His certification allowed him to teach middle-grade science, but by the 1980s, Welling had decided to pursue elementary certification. As long as he was already going back to school, he figured he might as well get his administrative credentials.

He earned some credits attending summer school at Montana State University-Northern in Havre. When Batavia School classes started in the fall, Welling went to night school at the University of Montana in Missoula.

So many Flathead Valley teachers were working on certification that the college offered some classes here, Welling said, but he couldn’t escape driving to Missoula after school for other necessary courses.

“There was a group of us who went down several times a week for classes,” he said. “We’d do a three-hour class, then drive home.”

When his administrative certificate was complete, Welling, who had been a head teacher, became principal of Batavia School. His next big challenge was in 1989, when his school consolidated with the neighboring Boorman District.

Voters in both districts approved the merger and Welling became principal of the new Smith Valley School District.

Tim Dowell was hired at the school that year. Welling made him feel right at home, he said.

“He just has always been a guy who will listen to you and provide good leadership within the district,” Dowell said. “He also is a very nice person.”

The men played golf together, and Welling encouraged Dowell to become a referee for rural basketball games. Elementary school staff members tend to be overwhelmingly female, and Dowell said he will miss Welling dearly a year from now, when the 2011 March Madness tournament is in full swing.

“It’s very possible that I’ll be the only man out at Smith Valley next year,” he said. “Who am I going to talk about this with next year?”

Chances are, Dowell will see Welling from time to time. Welling said he hopes to volunteer in the community and at the school — when he isn’t busy spending time with his grandchildren in Kalispell and Denver.

“If they need anything, I’ll be around to help out,” he said.

It won’t be the same as having his constant presence at the school, Norlander said.

“I wish I had some great words of wisdom for him — or for us,” she said. “But we’re going to be OK.”

Reporter Kristi Albertson may be reached at 758-4438 or by e-mail at kalbertson@dailyinterlake.com.