Two HoVal icons are retiring this year

They are auto shop teacher Richard Estelow and wood shop instructor Skip Johnson

By John Tredrea
   Two faculty mainstays will be gone from Hopewell Valley Central High School when school opens in September 2007.
   Auto shop teacher Richard Estelow and wood shop instructor Skip Johnson will retire in July. Mr. Estelow has been at the school 41 years; Mr. Johnson, 40 years.
   "Eighty-one years of service from two faculty members is remarkable," Superintendent Judith A. Ferguson said during the Feb. 21 school board meeting. "We are really sorry to see these two teachers go."
   The future of wood shop at CHS is secure, the superintendent said. Not so for auto shop, however. "We have no intention of changing wood shop," though another teacher for it must be found, she said.
   "Auto shop is a dying program in New Jersey high schools," the superintendent said. "I know it will be missed, but I don’t believe we will be able to continue with a full-fledged auto shop. I don’t know what the answer will be at this time."
   The superintendent said the auto shop is "outdated and would be very expensive to replace. We know some of our students thrive on hands-on electives and are exploring alternatives" to the current auto shop program.
   Several people, including Mr. Johnson, urged the board to try to keep auto shop. Mr. Estelow was not at the meeting.
   "Dick Estelow has been a phenomenal asset to the educational community for a such a long time," Mr. Johnson said. "He befriends these kids and has taught them so much about life. I’d hate to see him leave and then have us say two or three years down the road: ‘We used to have an auto shop here.’ I hope the school board sees fit to continue this program, which has been vital to so many kids in this area."
   Bernadette Schetler, longtime English teacher at CHS and president of the local teachers union, said "it was very difficult" for Mr. Estelow to retire. "I ask the board to reconsider" discontinuing auto shop, she said.
   District resident JoAnn Thompson’s son graduated from CHS a number of years ago. "They saved my son," she said of Messrs. Estelow and Johnson, her voice breaking. "If it weren’t for these two men, I don’t know where my son would be. They protected him. They set him straight. He has a good job and is doing very well."
   Douglas Brower, Messrs. Estelow and Johnson’s department head at CHS, said of them: "They are master craftsmen and master teachers and just plain good people."
   Of Mr. Estelow, Mr. Brower said: "A man of great character, Dick maintains the high standards and his students rise to meet those expectations. His auto shop is regularly open to kids after school every day, usually to 6 p.m. and beyond. He is probably the last teacher out of the school every day."
   In his 1981 teacher evaluation of Skip Johnson, former CHS Principal E. Norman Udy called the him "a teacher’s teacher," Mr. Brower said. "A professor at Trenton State College was quoted around the same time as saying, ‘Skip and his colleagues’ serve as the backbone to one of best practical arts departments in the state."