Gordon to retire after 23 years of teaching

Like all great people in the world Gordon is a fan of the Chicago Bears, which means he is loyal and patient. That translates to anything he does.

Gordon has also been a teacher for 23 years. 17 of which were at Malta High.

In his teaching career he has taught chemistry, physics, anatomy, zoology, biology, earth sciences.

In a world where science clashes with religion, Gordon teaches both.

He has also been preacher at the Little White Church in Malta and Saco Methodist for the past 23 years. His ministering will continue, even after his retirement from teaching, which will begin this summer.

He graduated from Beaver Creek County High School in 1968, where he graduated with former Malta teacher Sue Poulton. Poulton was a teacher at Malta for over 30 years.

"We grew up together," Gordon said. "That's what makes the world small."

After high school, Gordon married the love of his life Susan K. Gordon (York) on September 19, 1970.

"Her great-great-great-great uncle started Duke University. If you go to Duke University there's a York chapel still there," Gordon said noting that York was a minister.

Before Gordon and York married, Gordon joined the army.

Over his ten year career the Gordon's have lived in Fort Campbell Kentucky (Tennessee), Fort Bliss, Texas, Korea and Germany.

"The object of going into the army those days, was that we both wanted to go back to college and we had a baby on the way and another one coming," he told the PCN. "It only cost five bucks to have a baby in the army."

Though there were many perks of simply joining the branch, Gordon loved serving his country and if it weren't for a back injury that required three surgeries, he may still be in the military.

I had fun in the military, but I had three back operations and I wanted to be able to walk and do what I wanted to do," he said.

After his time in the Army ended in 1979, Gordon put his focus into his family and education. He attended and graduated in 1983 with a bachelors degree in engineering that included broad-field majors in science, with a major in history, with a minor in chemistry and a minor in physics.

"I was about a year ahead of my wife and I had to take another year of courses," he said.

Gordon studied hard during his collegiate career, participating full-time, even in the summer months.

He received his first masters degree, which was in Education in 1988.

As far as his teaching career, it started in 83' after his graduation. It only lasted one year. After Turner he took a new job in Huntley Project for five years. Then after teaching in Socorro, Texas for a year, Gordon had lost the desire to teach.

"In Texas, they thought you should be on task all the time and you didn't have this back and forward with students, like at Malta. It felt like you weren't doing your job that well because it was just about the curriculum," he said. "They all need more than the curriculum."

He earned a second Masters in Divinity in 1992 after attending college at Bangor Theological Seminary in Bangor Maine.

What led him to a college in Maine?

"The minister I had, while I was teaching in Worden, was a Filipino whose uncle was a missionary in the Philippines for 25 years," said Gordon. "I wanted to go where he went because he was a great minister."

After living in Malta for five years and had established himself as a minister at Saco Methodist and The Little White Church, Gordon got a call from Malta Public Schools the day before school began that the high school science teacher quit.

"Somebody ratted me out and told them I had a master's degree in science," Gordon said.

Gordon had an important decision to make.

"God gives you talents and we're supposed to utilize them," he told the PCN. "Jesus was a teacher too."

For the beginning of his last stint, he was hired part time for Malta High in 98.

The following year he became full-time.

In his teaching career, Gordon has been a positive influence in schools of all sizes, the biggest of which was in a suburb of El Paso, TX, that had 850 students from tenth to twelfth grade.

The thing he really appreciated about Malta High was it's student to teacher ratio and the fact that he could hug anyone that would hug back.

He will miss the kids the most.

"It's true, the kids do keep you young," he said.

He won't miss the Malta M-ettes basketball games because he plans to catch them all whether they are home or away.

Gordon may be the biggest M-ette fan in Montana. When asked about his love for girl's basketball, Gordon explained that he was a girl's basketball coach at Huntley Project for five years and after not being able to attend games for years, due to his own constructive criticism, he eventually fell in love with the game again.

"Now I get to go to games on my time," he said. "I don't have to get out of school and drive down the road 80 miles-per-hour. Now I can go early and have supper and lunch and don't have to eat hot dogs anymore. It's going to be good."

He won't miss the inconsistency between parents, kids and school.

"There's an inconsistency where, parents think their kids are doing work and they aren't doing it. How can some kids miss 60 days of school and get away with it, especially when they have all this work to make up," Gordon said.

He also said that one point of school was to get them in from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., to condition their bodies for eight-hour work days.

"It's not that way anymore," he said. "What's that going to do to our workforce? People don't realize habits are instilled into you."

Though he doesn't have many plaques or awards, Gordon really takes pride in the students he has taught including Matt Shearing, who is an Astrophysicist at Purdue.

There have been numerous engineers, nurses and doctors that have sat in Gordon's class.

"Those are the high points but also the kids that struggle to make it are just as important as those guys who make it big," he said. "Just because you don't do well in school doesn't mean you're a bad person."

The kids who make it after struggling through school encouraged Gordon the most.

In addiction to being a science teacher and basketball coach, Gordon also coached track at Huntley Prjoect, junior high football and volleyball in Malta.

He has also had the distinct honor of officiating many weddings of previous students, who attended Malta High. He has also done 250 funerals and baptisms, since he's moved to Phillips County.

"I've done a lot of weddings for former students and that's nice that they come and ask me to do it," Gordon said. "What's even better is after the weddings, then come the kids. It's neat."

Though Gordon still looks like he has a few years of teaching left, one major reason he retired was because his son retired from the military a few years ago.

"That worked on my mind a little bit," he said. "I'm working two jobs and he's retired. There's something wrong with this!," he continued emphatically.

Gordon also would like to thank his wife Susan for helping with his church ministry and raising their family consisting of four children, which allowed him to focus more on school and the students.

"She's picked up a lot of the slack over the years," Gordon said.