Melaine Walker Pfaff

gardenlady4719@hotmail.com

gardening, reading, cooking, spending time with family and friends, volunteering at Sacred Heart Hospital in the NUCU and in my great nephew's classrooms at Colbert Elementary.

After graduation I went to college at Eastern. I graduated in 1974 with a degree in secondary English education and journalism. I moved to Newport, Oregon and taught at Lincoln Junior High School for 6 years. I met my husband there and got married in 1976. We moved to Salem, Oregon in 1980 and I began working at Central High School in Independence, Oregon. Also during that time I completed my master's degree in counseling and English education at Western Oregon University. I taught English at Central for 8 years. I then transferred to the counseling office. My main emphasis in the counseling department was drug and alcohol counseling and working with the teen parents along with my normal caseload of students for general counseling duties. It kept me busy with every day bringing something different.
In 1984 I had my daughter Olivia 2 1/2 months premature. She weighed 3 pounds and was 16 inches long. She spent about 7 weeks in the hospital before she came home. I took a year leave of absence to be home with her. To look at her now you wouldn't know that she started off so tiny. We moved to Independence, Oregon in 1988. Her dad and I divorced when she was in 2nd grade and I became a single parent. Olivia attended school in the school district I worked in which allowed me a lot of leeway to attend all of her activities. She was a 3 sport athlete (volleyball, basketball, and softball). I spent a lot of time at the scorers table and in the bleachers or in lawn charis at games. She played volleyball for a year at Spokane Falls Community College and then transferred back to Chemeketa Community College in Salem, Oregon to continue her education and to play softball. I guess she missed mom and her friends more than she thought she would while she was up in Spokane. She then transferred to Western Oregon University where she graduated with a BA in health and physical education.
I continued working for one more year after she graduated and decided that 32 years in public education was enough for me. If it had just been the kids I would have kept on working, but I got tired of the parents and the constant administrative changes and government requirements.
While in Independence I served 2 terms on the city council. It was a very interesting experience. I also served as a panel member on sanction court for youth offenders. I was involved in several programs with the local police department involving gangs and drug and alcohol problems in the community.
After I retired I spent a year fixing my house up in Oregon and getting it ready to sell. It sold in less than a month. During that time I had been searching online for a house in Spokane. With my sister and brother-in-law's help we had narrowed the search down to about 5 houses. I came up to Spokane on a Sunday. My brother-in-law and I met with the real estate agent on Monday and looked at houses. I made an offer on a house that day. The people accepted the offer and I had the inspection done on Tuesday and went back to Oregon to pack. A month later I was in the U-Haul on my way to Spokane. I moved into my house on November 10, 2007.
I spent the winter not working at all for the first time in my life. I did spend a lot of time shoveling snow though. It was fun at first then I decided I needed to do some things to be more productive. In January 2008 I began volunteering at the Vanessa Behan Crisis Nursery working in the day care. It has been a very rewarding effort for me. I began working part time at Home Depot in the gardening department in April 2008. This helped to pay for all of the major improvements that my yard needed. Part of my time is also spent helping to get my mom to appointments and places she needs to be. This past year we have also been very busy planning my daughter's wedding which will take place in August here in Spokane.
I still keep in touch with a few of my friends from high school but am looking forward to seeing more of you in June. Photos will follow when I get Olivia over to help me put them on the computer.

The school bus yellow car that I drove to school

Gayle Mohney, Patty Mott, Jopie Berkers, Dave Franklin,Rick Knapp, Sue Fernau, Nancy Goddell, Barry Homes

Not being involved in more activities.

Mrs. Stueckle from junior high.
Mrs. Millay, Mrs. Burkhardt, Mrs. Christenson, and Mr. Weisman. Mr. Weishauer