Retired Apollo teacher and counselor, Larry Severt, looks back on his years at Apollo High School as an inspiring and innovative time. He was one of the initial teachers at Apollo’s opening in 1970. Then as he and his colleagues approached their own retirement, he wanted to reflect on and capture those years. One by one, Severt interviewed the staff who made Apollo what it was from 1970-1990.
Prior to Apollo, Severt began his teaching career at Tech High School. However, his career path required a little soul searching.
“When I started in college,” reflects Severt, “I started in engineering. That was a mistake. I was not designed for engineering. Eventually, I changed my major to English, and after I graduated, my first job was in Motley. From there, I went to St. Cloud Tech and then to Apollo.”
Severt taught English at Apollo for three years while he completed his master’s degree. He then became a guidance counselor until his retirement.
“I enjoyed the job,” remembers Severt. “It seemed to suit me well. I wasn’t tied to the clock. I could meet the kids one-on-one and try to help them with whatever they needed.”
Shifting to a modular schedule at Apollo from the standard six or seven period day was a bit challenging at first. Severt felt his first three years at Tech were great years. He had wonderful older mentors to guide him. One teacher, Bill Franti, embodied what a teacher should be, so Severt carried that idea with him to Apollo.
“The first year at Apollo, nobody really knew what was going on,” laughs Severt. “We didn’t have what’s called ‘day independence’, which meant that we had small groups, large groups and labs and conceivably students could meet you three times in the one day. Later, we established day independence, which meant that that [seeing same students several times a day] couldn’t happen. We found that in large groups … we couldn’t compete with television and other mass media to do anything meaningful. So, we abandoned large groups and kept with small groups and labs.”
When the dust of opening a new school settled, teachers found themselves in the ideal classroom with 12-16 students.
“Every student counted,” says Severt. “Nobody could hide including the teachers. You got to know kids in a more intimate setting and discussions were better. The advantages were great. Kids had 40% of their time open on average. Some kids decided to take more classes. Then, we had satellite areas in every discipline. Kids who wanted to or had a special interest in an area could go there, and there was always professional staff there either to supervise or answer questions.”
Over time, budget cuts in staff discontinued the satellite areas. It was the start of the end of the modular system at Apollo.
As the 1990s approached and Severt’s older colleagues began retiring, he wanted to capture the essence of what Apollo was during his tenure. He described them as “hand-picked and off the beaten track.”
One iconic teacher, Ken Doucette, a social studies teacher was his first subject.
“I thought Ken was such an interesting person that it would be a shame to lose his experiences and just have them disappear,” describes Severt. “So, I thought, ‘I’ll interview Ken.’ I did that on cassette tape and transcribed it into print.”
He put the transcript away for 10 years until Paul Kinney, Apollo’s first principal, was set to retire. So, he interviewed Kinney and later began to interview most of his colleagues. Each interview was recorded and then transcribed. By the time he finished, he had approximately 40 interviews.
Severt set the interviews aside until the fall of 2020 when his old Apollo colleague and friend John Wertz contacted him. Apollo was celebrating its 50-year anniversary and Wertz thought publishing the interviews in a book would be perfect timing.
“I didn’t have any interest in that process [editing and publishing],” explains Severt. “I just told John, ‘Here’s all the information. You go ahead. You have my permission to do anything you want with this information. John worked hard on it.”
The pair corresponded frequently about questions, information and archives. For months, they worked on the book together. When Severt found out that Wertz was ill, the goal became to finish the book as quickly as possible.
Wertz had the forethought to bring Ron Altmann on to assist with the book. Sadly, Wertz passed away in December of 2020 before seeing the book in its published form.
“If it had not been for John,” shares Severt, “this book would not exist. Really, the credit … belongs to John and then Ron who finished the project.”
Now the book, “Apollo Reflections,” can be found on Amazon for purchase. It tells the stories of the first Apollo teachers, their lives and where they came from, as well as their views on teaching in the modular system. As stated in the publisher’s note of “Apollo Reflections,” “This book is available through Amazon as a price that clears the printing cost. Any receipts from the sale of ‘Apollo Relections’ in excess of printing expenses will be donated to the Apollo Connection Scholarship Fund which annually provides scholarship support to graduates who intend to become teachers.”
As Principal Paul Kinney so aptly says in the foreward to the book, “Those were the days my friends. I thought they’d never end.”
In retirement, Severt keeps himself busy.
- He swims 1,000 yards 3-4 times a week.
- He’s a bass guitarist in his band “The Garage Band.”
- He also loves to play pickleball with friends.
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