Anita Campbell
County Reporter
When the final school bell rings on May 19 at John Boise Middle School, three long time teachers will be leaving the building for the last time.
Kathryn Edwards, Katie Johnson and Steve Larsen will be retiring at the end of the 2022 school year.
JBMS reading instructor Kathryn Edwards grew up in Lincoln and graduated from LHS in 1980. She continued her education at Southwest Baptist University where she met her husband, Barry.
Barry took a job as a math teacher at Warsaw and Kathryn began her career at Montrose for two years. She next found a job at Skyline where she taught for six years then she came to the Warsaw R-9 District as the gifted/talented teacher. The gifted/talented program was dropped during a time of big budget cuts and Edwards returned to the classroom as a reading instructor.
The Edwards are the parents of two sons, Spencer, 32, a radio broadcaster in Clinton and Miles, 29, a physician’s assistant at Golden Valley Clinic in Warsaw.
While Edwards said she has always enjoyed teaching she said that the COVID epidemic has made the job more stressful.
“I love talking to the students and that has never changed, but I feel like this is the time for me to take a new direction,” said Edwards.
Edwards said that technology is the biggest change that she has seen during her tenure.
“My students have grown up with computers and cell phones so this modern technology is second nature to them; however, it has changed the way we teach,” said Edwards.
With her retirement, Edwards plans to spend more time volunteering at Cedar Grove Baptist Church where her husband Barry is the minister. She also plans to work part time.
“I will miss my students and the people I work with,” said Edwards.
JBMS counselor Katie Johnson has been in education for 29 years. She grew up in Cole Camp and graduated from CCHS in 1987. She continued her education at the University of Missouri in Kansas City (UMKC) and graduated in 1992.
“I took another year because I changed my major,” said Johnson. “I thought I wanted to major in English then the first class I took made me doubt myself. I took a poetry class and the professor made copies of my paper to pass out to the class and told the class that this was how a paper on poetry was supposed to be. I decided to try English education again.”
Education was a family tradition for Johnson as her mother was an elementary teacher in Versailles for many years, her father was a Spanish teacher at Smith Cotton in Sedalia and her brother is an elementary school librarian in Independence.
Johnson’s first job was in Green Ridge for two years. She taught high school English, speech, drama and she was the cheer coach. Her next job was in Concordia for two years and then she met her future husband Rodney Johnson.
It was a blind date at the Pizza Hut in Lincoln. They ended the evening helping a friend whose cows got out and they helped chase them down. “We are very opposite but we agree on the important issues,” said Johnson.
Because of that blind date, Johnson took a job closer to Warsaw with the Otterville School District then a position opened up in Cole Camp and she went back to her old high school in Cole Camp to teach English, speech and drama for 11 years.
The Johnsons are the parents of two boys, Rusty, 22, and Jeremiah, 17, who will graduate from WHS in May. Rusty has his own business RJ Mowing and More and also works at Black and Decker in Sedalia. Jeremiah plans to attend Ozark Technical College next year to major in business and marketing.
Johnson finished her degree in school counseling and took the job as the WHS counselor. After two years she transferred to JBMS as the counselor where she has been for ten years.
During her time as a teacher, Johnson directed plays as well as coaching speech teams. One of the highlights of her career was taking second place at the Missouri State Speech Contest with a one act play. She also had several students who qualified for the state speech contest over the years.
“I loved working with students on plays and contests,” said Johnson. “It was rewarding to watch them grow and become more confident in their abilities. The draw back of course was missing some of my own boys’ activities because I was at school so much.”
Johnson said that the four grandparents were a great help to her to watch the boys when she and Rodney were working.
“I also took the boys with me to play practice and my students entertained them,” said Johnson.
Of the many classes Johnson has taught over the years, the class she loved the most was an elective English class which focused on literature of the Holocaust.
“We read literature from the Holocaust and visited the Jewish Community Center in Kansas City to hear a speech from an actual Holocaust survivor,” said Johnson.
Looking back on the past 29 years, Johnson said that kids have basically not changed, the change has been society with new technology.
“Cell phones have become a problem for education because all of the students have phones and they have created more problems than they have solved,” said Johnson.
Johnson also commented that as a counselor she has seen an increase in anxiety and depression among her students.
“Our school district is addressing the need to work on problems in mental health issues,” said Johnson. “South School will have a full-time counselor next year and the high school is adding an academic adviser to help the high school counselor.”
Johnson said that if she were to live her life over, she would choose the same path.
“This has been a very satisfying career and I would do it all over again,” said Johnson. “I loved working with children of all ages.”
The Johnsons are the parents of two boys, Rusty, 22, and Jeremiah, 17, who will graduate from WHS in May. Rusty has his own business RJ Mowing and More and also works at Black and Decker in Sedalia. Jeremiah plans to attend Ozark Technical College next year to major in business and marketing.
Johnson’s plans after her retirement include fixing up their house to put on the market then fixing up the Johnson family farm house for their family to live in.
“We live on a farm with cattle and goats so there is always work to be done,” said Johnson.
JBMS history teacher Steve Larsen is also retiring at the end of the school year.
Larsen was born in Warrensburg but moved to Raytown as a child and graduated from Raytown High School in 1976. Larsen continued his education at CMSU. He graduated in 1980 with a major in physical education and a minor in history. He completed his master’s degree in 2002 in sports administration.
Larsen spent five years in Houston, Texas, working for Coors Beer then he returned to Missouri and worked in construction at the Lake of the Ozarks. He next worked for Pepsi while he was finishing student teaching.
Larsen began his career in education with the California, Missouri, School District as a full-time substitute and the ISS supervisor. He ended up teaching history and physical education as well as coaching high school boys’ basketball.
He came to Warsaw in 2001 as a high school geography and U. S. government teacher. In 2002 he moved to JBMS as a history teacher.
Larsen has coached middle school girls and boys’ basketball, baseball, high school girls’ basketball and high school girls softball.
In softball, Larsen’s teams have collected eight district titles, four quarter final titles and in 2010 the WHS Girls’ Softball team won the Missouri State Championship.
“I have enjoyed all the kids I have coached over the past 29 years but the highlight has to be winning the 2010 State title,” said Larsen. “It is very exciting to see my former players coaching the WHS softball team this year.”
Education has been a family tradition for the Larsen family as his grandmother was a principal, his dad was a teacher and coach, his son Dennis is a coach and librarian at WHS and his daughter Callie is a teacher at Cole Camp.
Larsen and his wife Lorraine have been married for 35 years and share two daughters and a son as well as four granddaughters.
Larsen plans to spend more time with the grandchildren after he retires. He also hopes to travel.
“Warsaw has been a good district to work for, but I am ready for new adventures,” said Larsen. “I have enjoyed my career and I wouldn’t have done anything differently.”
