TRIBUNE COLUMN
Harlan legend lives on as career makes a new leap

An era at rock Bridge High School will end in two weeks when the Class of 2008 graduates.

Linda Harlan, the last of the original teaching staff at Rock Bridge, will no longer be wearing the green and gold.

It was 35 years ago this month that Wayne Walker, the principal of Columbia’s new south-side high school, put together his staff for the 1973-74 school year. He assembled a group of eager young educators looking forward to trying new things in a new school filled with the enthusiasm of youth and the future.

Linda Harlan, a 25-year-old Boonville native and wife of a University of Missouri law student, came to Rock Bridge after three years as a junior high English teacher in Fulton. She was not only young, eager and tough, but as durable as they come.

In her 34 school years in Rock Bridge’s language arts department, she taught all levels of English, mass media, creative writing and humanities.

In 1964, Conrad Stawski was an English teacher at Hickman High School who put together the first humanities curriculum in Missouri. It brought together architecture, art, literature, music and sculpture in one class.

When Rock Bridge opened, Walker made Conrad his No. 1 priority, and within a year Conrad had recruited Linda as a part of his humanities staff. Linda had found her guru, second only to her husband.

"The highlight of my teaching career was working alongside Conrad for 22 great years." Linda says, her eyes tearing up. Conrad died in 1996.

Humanities education has been a huge part of Linda’s life, and though she’s wrapping up her final month at Rock Bridge, she’ll be teaching two humanities classes at Hickman in the 2008-09 school year. She’ll be retired, but only on paper, not in practice.

"It hard to quit when you’re still having fun," she says.

Linda Holt grew up in Boonville and was a playmate of Tim Harlan before they were in grade school.

"I was the ‘older woman’ when we were in high school, a year ahead of Tim." She was a cheerleader, the vice president of the science club and in the senior play.

Linda went off to Central Methodist College to study English and psychology, completing a teaching certificate.

"Hard to believe, but I was a leader in the Young Republican Club. It took a while, but I was transformed into a Democrat."

Good thing. Her preschool sweetheart had gone from Boonville High to Westminster College and, when Linda graduated from Central in 1970, she and Tim were married. Tim was a yellow-dog Democrat.

They moved to Columbia in 1971, where Tim earned his legal shingle, Linda eventually landed a job at Rock Bridge, and the couple has lived happily ever after.

Tim was a four-time Democratic state representative from the 23rd District before term limits returned him to the law profession, where he concentrates on mental health and welfare matters.

The Harlans have raised two sons - one a Kewpie and one a Bruin.

Reed, the older, graduated from Hickman in 1996, where he was a drummer. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Today, he is a computer service manager for the Wildlife Conservation Society in New York City.

Brook is a 1999 Rock Bridge grad, a two-time qualifier for the state high school wrestling tournament, a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, a finalist in "The Next Food Network Star" television show, the immediate past wrestling coach at Rock Bridge and currently the culinary arts program director at the Columbia Career Center.

But back to Linda, the soon-to-be ex-Bruin and future Kewpie.

She has taught more than 4,000 students in her English and humanities classes. Many have gone on to careers in teaching and the humanities, and "none have landed in prison, as far as I know," she says.

Several have returned to carry on the Harlan tradition, teaching in the Columbia system: Beckie and Rick Houcks, McKenzie Everett-Kennedy and Andy Materer are English teachers; Gwen Struchtemeyer taught English and is now the media center director at Rock Bridge; Roy Morris runs the Rock Bridge planetarium; Dave Graham is a Bruin social studies teacher.

Marilyn Toalson, a member of the first graduating class in 1974, is now in charge of the gifted student program, and Jennifer Mast is the Rock Bridge athletic director.

Judge Kevin Crane was a Harlan student, "and we both survived to tell about it." Same goes for Sean Clark, a 1975 grad who went on to a career writing for TV in Hollywood and is now a professor at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas.

Linda’s memory bank is filled with names such as Tim Jamieson, the MU baseball coach; Justin Bohon; Deke Dickerson; Todd Gingrich, a current Rhodes Scholar; and Monica Miller, a teacher today at Paxton Keeley Elementary School and a former Harlan student who survived as a baby-sitter for the Harlans’ two ornery boys. Plus an army of others.

The future?

"Tim and I love theater trips to New York. We make at least three trips a year.

"I’ve kept a journal since I was eight, and now I hope to find time to write.

"I’ve been involved with peace groups for years and have been active in conflict resolution programs. I hope to continue. When you raise two strong-minded sons with different ideas, you learn about conflict resolution."

Linda was active at West Junior High School in a program called peer mediation and at Russell Elementary with RAPP - Resolve All Problems Peacefully. She is a co-sponsor of Amnesty International at Hickman and directed the program at Rock Bridge.

"Today I work with Gail Plemmons to help anyone who needs help in resolving confrontation and conflict."

Don’t forget, Linda’s future also includes those two classes in the humanities at Hickman.

A note from Ol’ Clark to Wayne Walker: You done good, ol’ buddy, when you hired that young unknown from Fulton Junior High. You both have made Columbia a better place to live.

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Bill Clark’s columns appear Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Reach him at 474-4510.

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