It Happened in Crawford Co. | 'Helping others' guided Margaret Thornton's teaching career

Margaret Ann Fehrman Thornton took the challenge of “help someone else " literally.

Margaret was born in 1947, the only child of an alcoholic father and an extraordinary mother. Because of poverty, her parents never considered college, but her mother left no doubt in Margaret’s mind she would go. Margaret grew up in Jackson, Ohio, and attended Jackson High School, where she was in the band and wrote for the student newspaper. She was a good student in English and foreign language, graduating in 1965.

She was the first in her family to attend college, enrolling at West Virginia Wesleyan. Faculty and friends there changed her life, and she also worked for a blind Spanish professor. The director of financial aid, Dean Sam Ross, found the help she needed to pay for college. When she graduated in 1969 with majors in English and Spanish, she told Dean Ross she could never repay him. He replied. “Help someone else.”

He had no idea she would take that literally. Helping students became her way of life. Margaret’s husband, George Thornton, her high school sweetheart, also graduated from Wesleyan. They married in 1969 and some years later, their three daughters also became Wesleyan alums.

Margaret accepted a fellowship at Bowling Green University, earning a master's in English, and George earned a master’s degree in history. They accepted teaching positions at Hopewell Loudon High School in Seneca County in 1970-71. In the spring of 1971, they accepted positions at Wynford High School, but shortly after, they were offered jobs at Tiffin Columbian. They had given Wynford their word that they would come, and they did. George taught two years at Wynford and spent the rest of his career at Columbian High School. Margaret settled into Wynford and stayed there 20 years.

Instrumental in Margaret’s teaching career at Wynford were Superintendent William Donnenwirth, Principal Don Miller and the Wynford Class of 1974. With the birth of Margaret’s daughter in 1972, she took a leave for a year and debated returning. Miller asked her to teach seniors, the same group she had taught as sophomores. She loved that class, and that is why she went back.

When George went to Tiffin, the young couple had only one car. He would drop Margaret at Wynford in the morning and pick her up on his way home from Tiffin. A second vehicle improved their lives. After struggling to keep pace with full-time teaching and motherhood, Margaret approached Donnenwirth about a half-day position. He agreed on condition that she find someone to take the other half of her schedule. She did, and for the next several years taught part-time.

“As a teacher, I had academic freedom to teach what I thought needed to be taught — not constrained as teachers are today by state testing,” she said 

She felt blessed to work with administrators like Don Miller, who believed she knew what she was doing and just let her do it.

Margaret’s teaching changed through the years because of students who returned to share their college experiences. They were her eyes and ears on campuses. Whether it was a class syllabus, a text book or just conversation, the college kids brought her information about expectations on their campuses and she tried to adjust her classes to better prepare the current high school students. Sometimes they didn’t enjoy her expectations for their writing. Often, those same students returned to say “Thanks. I didn’t like writing those papers in school, but when I got to college, I could do the work.”

Margaret was always interested in college, and working with the “world’s best guidance counselor,” Ellen Schiefer, she learned lessons about college advising, which she would use the rest of her career.

Leaving Wynford was extremely difficult, but in 1991, Margaret became the junior/senior/AP English teacher at Bucyrus High School. Eventually she became adjunct faculty for Kenyon College, teaching an English class for which students received college credit. After retiring from full-time teaching in 2001, she continued to teach the Kenyon course to students at both Bucyrus and Wynford for eight more years.

One of the satisfactions of that job was that great students from both school districts got to know and respect each other. While they were athletic rivals, they were academic friends, reading the same literature and talking about the same issues. Taking students from both schools on the same bus for a field trip to Kenyon was fun. There were wonderful students in both of those districts, and she was privileged to teach them. By the way, it’s a 4-minute drive from parking lot to parking lot of the two high schools.

For several years, Margaret said she had a split personality, teaching at Wynford at the same time she was a Bucyrus band parent. To show her pride for both, she had a shirt that said on the front “I'm a Marching Redman Mom" but on the reverse side it read “I back the Royals.” Margaret still supports both schools.

Readers if you are interested in sharing a story write Mary Fox, 931 Marion Road, Bucyrus, OH 44820 or email littlefoxfactory@columbus.rr.com.