Teacher hopes to give photos to former students

Former Kalispell Central School classmates reunited recently — after more than 45 years — to look at photos taken during the three years Roy Barker taught seventh and eighth grades at the school from 1964 to 1967. 

He was not just a teacher, but an avid self-taught photographer and documentary filmmaker.

The first photos Barker remembered taking were of ocean waves when he was 17. Barker had a fine art photographer’s sense not to shoot the waves from an ordinary, straight-on angle; instead he got as close to his subject as possible before it crashed over him. 

“I would go out in the ocean. I wanted to get a picture through the wave, into the sun. I waited until the very last second ’til the wave started to curl, [then] I’d rotate very fast and pitch it [the camera] to my friends on the shore,” Barker said.

From then on, Barker was a dedicated photographer. Within the first hours after his two sons were born, he decided to take their photo every 24 hours for the next 365 days.

People were among his favorite subjects, as was evident by the numerous black-and-white candid photos spread out on a large table at the Daily Inter Lake office Sept. 26. 

Most of them were taken using an Agfa Folding Bellows camera — the “portable, everyday” camera of the time, Barker said.

“Photos really have an impact of something we can’t do — preserve our youth,” Barker reflected. 

Now 81, Barker said as he got older, he realized the importance of sharing the photos with former students and giving them copies. When people find themselves snatching items to save from a fire, the family photo album is one of the first items they grab, along with people and pets, he said.

“I know the value of photographs to people,” Barker said. 

His former students beamed when they found photos of themselves. 

“It’s fun watching people grab back a little bit of their youth,” Barker said.

This was the case for LuAnn Servo, who immediately recognized a photo of herself wearing the first dress she sewed while in seventh-grade home economics. A classmate walked up to Servo and complimented the sleeves on the dress.

“The print was red, orange and yellow, big flowers,” Servo said. “I got an A on it. The teacher was so proud of me because the sleeves were all gathered. Oh, I was so proud of it.”

The photographic process did not have the immediacy people rely on today, nor were cameras as prevalent. Former student Janet (Nelner) Mullis of Kalispell said getting a photo taken was usually a special event.

“You might take only 12 pictures a year,” Mullis said. 

“Photos were expensive to develop and cumbersome,” former student Marilyn (Rauthe) Driscoll of Kalispell added. 

Barker said he was able to take thousands of pictures because he did his own developing.

Former student Rosemary (Thramer) Gilbert of Columbia Falls recalled that Barker would post his photos, often of school events, dances and athletic games every week.

“He always had photos up every Monday after the weekend of one of our Teen Town dances of the day, and we would go to that wall to see what Mr. Barker had put up,” Gilbert said.

Photography was just a part of Barker’s dynamic personality, Gilbert said.

“He made you want to go to school every day,” Gilbert said.

Barker wasn’t always the only one behind the camera lens. His community involvement was captured in the Daily Inter Lake. 

In one photo from a June 1, 1967, newspaper, Barker is pictured changing a record on a turntable. The caption billed him as “Kalispell Teen Town’s favorite unofficial disc jockey.”

Barker fell into the role after he was asked to supervise dances. He coordinated 10 dances a year before he moved away to teach in another state.

While he was not one of Barker’s former students, Richard Funk of Kalispell remembered the Teen Town dances well. Funk regularly attended them while he was in the eighth grade in 1967 when Barker was known as “Mr. B.”

“They were held in the gym over at Linderman,” Funk said.

Barker also was a skier and mountain climber. He coached basketball and took students roller-skating, skiing, caving and mountain climbing, all while documenting it.

He continued documenting student events in his 30-year career, which took him to Louisiana, Washington, Hawaii and Oregon after leaving Kalispell. Barker hoped to find other former students and his next photo reunion was scheduled to take place in Washington the day after the Kalispell event.

“This made my day seeing these people,” Baker said.

Reporter Hilary Matheson may be reached at 758-4431 or by email at hmatheson@dailyinterlake.com.