Posted by Craig Faanes She was probably the finest elementary school teacher I ever had. I remember her having our class (that was 1960-1961) listen to a program on public radio hosted by Bob Ellerson, a wildlife biology professor at the U in Madison. Every Monday morning at 9:00 (or was it 9:30??) Dr. Ellerson would come on the air to tell us about what new animals he had seen the last week, what birds were migrating, what plants were in flower, what insects he'd found. His radio program was like Field Biology 101 for me. Afterward, Mrs Moe would do a modified version of "show and tell" and give all of us a chance to tell stories about what we had seen in nature the week before. We occasionally took trips down to the wetland next to the baseball field. We'd poke around and look at things and she'd try to interpret for us. I distinctly remember Mrs. Moe showing me my first muskrat. Little did she know that a few years later I would pay for my entire undergraduate degree (and some of my masters) by catching muskrats and selling their furs. Mrs Moe also had us glued to radio the day that John Glenn made his historic circumnavigation of the earth. We listened the day after his flight as reporters interviewed Glenn from a small air force base on Grand Turk Island in the British West Indies. Mrs Moe got out a map of the world after that show and we all tried to figure out where on earth that little island was. Curiously, during 1985 and 1986, while conducting research on wintering Kirtlands Warbler on Grand Turk Island, I had a field office in the same building where the Glenn interview occurred more than 20 years earlier. Each one of us can think of one or several teachers who had profound impacts on us while we were growing up (or in my case trying to grow up). Bill Transburg in high school biology was one, Jim Richardson a plant taxonomy professor in college was another. Without doubt, Evelyn Moe was the most influential teacher I had in grade school. Funny how I've not seen her since 1967, but I have a hollow feeling in me as I write this knowing that she's gone.
on 10/20/2005, 3:02 pm
69.23.244.140
I was surfing the Rice Lake Chronotype today (October 20, 2005) looking for news of people I remember and saw under the obituaries that Mrs Moe, everyone's 4th grade teacher, has died. Its truly a sad day for any and all of us who had her for a teacher.
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