PHOTOS BY LINDA DENICOLA Robert Minehardt teaches a sixth-grade class at the Shrewsbury Borough Elementary School June 3.
BY LINDA DeNICOLA
Staff Writer
Roots, teaching, family and community are all important to sixth-grade teacher Robert Minehardt, who moved to Shrewsbury from Florida when he was 14 years old.
What is also important to him is staying young at heart. “Peter Pan is my hero,” he said, adding that he is still a sixth-grader in spirit.
“I always knew I should be in the classroom. I love being with the children. It’s such a positive environment. We have the best children in the world here.” — Robert Minehardt Minehardt has been teaching at the Shrewsbury Borough Elementary School for 40 years. He is retiring at the end of this semester and plans to move back to Florida next winter.
A Fair Haven resident now, Minehardt spent most of his life in Shrewsbury. He attended Red Bank Regional High School and graduated in 1960. He went to Monmouth College and graduated in 1965. His first teaching job and his last teaching job, were at the Shrewsbury Borough School on Obre Place.
It was four decades ago when he started student teaching. As luck would have it, he was offered a full-time job when the cooperating teacher he was working with moved.
Minehardt said it was inevitable that he would get a job at the school.
“It’s a small town. I knew everyone, and everyone knew me and my family.”
In other words, Minehardt has deep roots in the community and that has been the way he likes it. Although he and his wife live in Fair Haven, they are both active and respected members of the Shrewsbury community. She has been the guidance counselor at the same school for the past 25 years and plans to retire at the end of this year.
The Shrewsbury Parent Teacher Group has arranged an appreciation party for him that was to be held last night at the school. People were asked to contribute memories of him that they would like to share. There should be many because Minehardt has taught for so long at the same school that he is teaching the children of former students.
He said working in Shrewsbury has been like working for 40 years within a family.
“I get to be with my friends’ children every day,” he said, adding, “it’s been the best of all things in my life. To be doing the thing you love to do and to be recognized for it is a wonderful thing.”
Minehardt, who teaches science and social studies, said many students come back to the school to visit, but many have also settled in the area so he runs into them wherever he goes.
“I bump into people I’ve taught in many settings. I’ve been a part of so many lives. It was less a job and more of a very rewarding experience.”
Minehardt said that he became interested in teaching while he was in college. “I worked at Camp Arrowhead [in Marlboro.] That’s when I realized that I enjoyed working with children. I have always resisted growing up,” he reiterated.
During his 40-year tenure, he served as vice principal for nine years, as assistant to the superintendent and as acting superintendent, but he was happiest teaching and always went back.
“I always knew I should be in the classroom. I love being with the children. It’s such a positive environment. We have the best children in the world here.”
During his long teaching career, Minehardt was instrumental in developing a number of programs. He started the summer school program, the Sandy Hook environmental program and a program called PEEC (Poconos Environmental Education Camp,) which is an overnight camping experience for sixth-graders that focuses on developing self esteem.
He said both of his sons were attending the school while he was vice principal and he also taught one of his sons.
“Everyone called me Mr. Minehardt, but he got to call me Dad. Sometimes his friends would jokingly refer to me as Dad. It never got in the way, though.”
Minehardt has been an active participant in the community. He served on the Shrewsbury Borough Council for two terms and now that he lives in Fair Haven, he volunteers at the annual Firemen’s Fair, held at the end of August.
Like his hero, Minehardt seems ageless. At 63 years old, he still has a twinkle when he talks about his life as an educator and his segue to his next life in Florida, which is open-ended.
Although he said that Monmouth County is a wonderful place to live, he is moving to Sarasota, Fla.
“We’re blessed with a lot of nice things in Monmouth County. We have wonderful schools, but my family is spread out all over.”
Minehardt and his second wife have a blended family, with five adult children and three grandchildren. “None of our children live in New Jersey. We feel it will be easier to lure them to Florida to visit, than to New Jersey,” he said.
He feels that it is time to move on to the next level. Since his favorite pastimes are beach activities like fishing, boating and swimming, Florida is the best of all worlds for him.
Not only that, but Florida is where he spent his childhood so in a sense he has roots there too.
He has already scoped out an aquarium where he plans to offer his services as a volunteer. “They have a giant touch tank. The kids get to touch the creatures with someone explaining things to them.”
For this teacher, retiring means time will be less restricted.
Minehardt sounds like his hero when he says, “It has been a wonderful experience getting to know and work with so many great kids.”