Carol Baker:
CLASS OF 1978
Laporte City Union High SchoolClass of 1978
La porte city, IA
Coggon Elementary SchoolClass of 1972
Coggon, IA
Carol's Story
Life
I live in a small lake community (smaller than LaPorte) where I do a lot of volunteer work. I am a city councilman and the chairman of the county planning and zoning commission. I was lucky enough to find a home available on the waterfront and I love living there - the serenity of the water changes your spirit, makes you calmer. I have my dogs and cats and I have financial interest in some exotic animals which is a lot of fun. My favorite pets are my dogs - I have an Australian Cattle Dog named Jake and a Newfoundland Dog (125 lbs of happiness) and her name is Tess. Life is good.
School
I wasn't a jock or a cheerleader or any of those "popular" things (or even physically beautiful for that matter) and going to school in a small town was a good springboard for some of the tough life lessons I would face later in life. I'm glad I was a polite kid who wasn't mean to people and glad for the experience of going to school in LaPorte. I'm pretty much the same - the person everyone would recognize - still into my books - I'm a lot better educated and a lot better traveled - I do a lot of volunteer work for my church and my community and I turned out to be a nice person. I somehow think that's a lot more important that some other things in life. Hope anyone reading this is well.
College
Ah, college in the late 70's - when everyone smoked pot and it never occurred to us that it may someday ruin your political career if you were a Democrat but not a Republican. Disco dancing. Roommates from hell and roommates that I've lost touch with and miss terribly. College was tough because high school was so easy and I never learned how to study but I got the hang of it. I loved teaching but it was getting too dangerous and finally we spent more time doing the paperwork and making sure we did everything politically correct instead of making sure the kids were educated. When we were in school and we screwed up, we got paddled - we lived without being emotionally scarred for life - we had our families for that. I remember college being the time when I learned to stand up for myself, no matter how hard it was or how scared I got. I learned that I was going to be on my own and have to rely on myself for the rest of my life and that was a lesson worth learning. I learned that I was a good person in college and that doing worthwhile things like becoming a Big Sister and doing volunteer work in the community made you a better person. I remember when I had the guts to leave school, strike out on my own for...Expand for more
a few months and then pick up again at another university in another state. I learned that, those things that do not kill you really do make you stronger. I got my heart broken by a boy for the first time and I learned all wrong what love was. I got it really right later on and I feel blessed by all of the unpleasant things I survived because when I finally found love, it was a good and lasting love that has transformed me completely as a human being. Yes, my college years were a time more of learning the truly important life lessons that would prepare me for survival in the real world. The book work was just superfluous, but it got me some great jobs that allowed me to work with kids for over 20 years. No child in my care was ever permitted to feel as lost and alone as I did as a kid and they have all understood that I really cared for them and had a good grip on their self-worth by the time I was through with them. I never had any kids of my own, but my friends constantly tell me that I was put here on this earth to love everyone else's. God Bless everyone who graduated and survived the University of Hard Knocks. Too bad there's no reunion for that.
Workplace
Being a teacher was the most rewarding thing I've ever done and my students have kept in touch with me over the years - perhaps the most rewarding part of all. I retired from teaching and found other ways to mentor high-risk teens and help them to become productive members of society. After 20 years, I felt that I had given at the office and decided a change of career was in order. I'm doing some professional writing now and have thrown myself into community work. Everything has been an enriching experience and I'm so grateful for the lessons I've learned along the way. All of those experiences have been a great springboard for the volunteer work I've been doing and serving my community has fulfilling in a way I could never have imagined. Changing the lives of people less fortunate than yourself leaves you blessed. My professional writing and community service work has led me to a great job as the executive director of the Chamber of Commerce for a quaint little historic town. I am working on combining tourism and economic development with the Chamber of Commerce to create a healthy thriving community from a town that was in eminent danger of dying. It has been a wonderful and rewarding challenge that again, is changing the lives of so many for the better. I'm having a hard time believing that it gets any better than this.
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