A4 Weekend of March 14-15, 2020
S P E C I A L
TheDallesChronicle.com
S E C T I O N
in the company of excellence
Courtney Kiser has been teaching since 1977. His current classroom is the same room he had when he was in sixth grade.
Courtney Kiser
Gabriel Bravo photo
Quality
Making learning fun
A heart for young people guides Kiser’s long career in teaching
Gabriel Bravo
The Dalles Chronicle
For the past 43 years Courtney Kiser has been
educating kids across Wasco County, from Rufus to
Maupin, to schools in The Dalles like Chenowith
Elementary, The Dalles Middle School and currently
in Dry Hollow Elementary.
“This year I have 24 kids,” Kiser said. “For the last
eight years I’ve had 30-35, so this is about the smallest
I’ve ever had in a long time. I’ve got a super nice group
of kids.”
Kiser keeps his students engaged and attentive by
having fun, telling jokes and occasionally teasing them.
Of course, his students return the favor and tease
him back.
“Did you hear about the Spanish magician?,” Kiser
asked the class. “He counted, ‘Uno, dos…’ and disap-
peared without a trace.”
Coincidently, Kiser has come full circle and currently
teaches fifth grade in the same classroom where he took
sixth grade.
“Dry Hollow was brand new when I went to school,”
Kiser said. “I attended here through first and sixth
grade. I can remember sitting over here in the last row,
struggling with reading. It was a tough subject for me.”
Since then the classroom’s blackboards have been
swapped out for dry-erase whiteboards, candid pho-
tos of Kiser’s students line the back wall and photos of
teams he’s coached adorn the left side.
“Seven or eight years ago, I coached almost every
sport,” Kiser said. “Not because I was good at it but be-
cause usually there was somebody that needed someone
to help the kids out and make sure they had a team. I’ve
coached volleyball, football, basketball, soccer, wres-
tling. Getting to know the kids in a different way was a
lot of fun.”
For the candid photos that line the back of his class-
room, Kaiser said he wanted to capture the student’s
personality within a snapshot. In order to do that he
handed out disposable cameras and had his students
take photos of each other.
Other extracurricular activities that Kiser is involved
in are chess club, student council, the Backpack Program
and taking tickets at high school games.
“Our student council is doing pretty well this year,”
Kiser said. “We have a lot of projects. It’s community
oriented and so the things we do is try to help other
people. For instance, we recently finished a campaign
for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society for children.
I was told we brought in over $1,000 and I think the
final count was $1,100 or something like that. The Dry
Hollow community is generous.”
With so much work and contribution that Kiser has
done for the community, the community decided to
help him when he was in need. Last summer Kiser had
B U I L D I N G R E L AT I O N S H I P S F R O M U N D E R G R O U N D U P
issues with his car. His estimate to get his car fixed was
more than the car was worth.
John Lakes and Meg Twid, former students of Kiser
and who were also married by him, decided to create a
GoFundMe page in order to raise money for a new car.
“We were out at Spooky’s and I was saying, ‘Yeah, dog
gone car had done fell apart again,’” Kiser said. “They
didn’t say a thing about it and that night they went home
and made a GoFundMe account. There’s so many won-
derful things to do that for and I don’t feel like I’m one
of them. It was really nice of them to do that.”
A total of 167 donations were made and raised
$10,770.
As the school year winds down and with so many lives
touched by Kiser, he said he may teach for one more
year before he retires.
“I still want to teach but I don’t want my health to
keep me from teaching,” Kiser said. “But I think even-
tually it will because my body is getting tired earlier. I’ll
teach all day and then I’ll go home and about six o’clock
I’ll go in and take a nap and my nap lasts until the next
morning. I used to have a lot more energy than I have
right now. I try to have as much as I can for the kids, but
it takes a lot out of me after awhile.”
Kiser said he’d like to thank the community for all
they’ve done for him and making him feel special. If it
was possible, Kiser said he’d mail a thank you note to
everyone that has helped him in any way.
Serving Wasco County for over 68 years
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