1979 Back: Karol; Front: Bill, Scott, Pat

Bill Mills grew up in Washington, Iowa, a town of about 7000 people in the southeastern part of the state. He graduated there from high school in 1961 and started college that fall at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls.

Bill met his future wife at UNI and they were married in August of 1964. Pat taught third grade in Waterloo, Iowa, until Bill graduated in 1966. They both applied for teaching positions at Plainfield, Iowa, a very small town forty miles north of Waterloo. Pat was hired as a first grade teacher and Bill obtained the high school business and driver's education positions. Bill soon found himself as the Junior Class sponsor and started a long career of running concession stands and planning JR-SR proms.

After thirteen years in Plainfield, they decided it was time to look for a new challenge and Bill began scanning the Sunday Register for openings in his field. Since he did not coach, the job availability was not extensive. But early in the spring of 1979, he noticed an ad for a business position in Manning, Iowa, with Driver's Education available, too.

Pat and Bill drove to Manning in early April so Bill could interview for the openings. That was when they met Mr. Paul Bjorkgren for the first time. As Superintendent, Paul conducted the initial interview. Following that, he introduced Bill to Mr. Wayne Curlile, the elementary principal, and the interview continued. Bill was impressed with the school facility and its leadership.

Pat and Bill toured Manning after the interview and found they were very impressed with what this small town had to offer. Here was a town with a population of about 1400, that had it's own hospital, two full-time doctors, a recreation center, an outdoor swimming pool, a nursing home, and five very active churches. They drove home that day hoping for a phone call with an offer of a contract.

They didn't have long to wait. The call came, followed by a contract to sign and by May 25, 1979, Bill was conducting Driver's Education classes at the Manning High School, strictly a summer class back then.

The fall semester Bill started teaching Bookkeeping, General Business and Junior and Senior High Keyboarding. His contract also included the infamous position of Junior Class Sponsor, AGAIN, which he shared over the years with various faculty members. Bill spent another eighteen years running concession stands and planning, decorating, and chaperoning for Junior-Senior Proms. There probably aren't a lot of people who can say they have attended thirty-one proms.

Over the next eighteen years, classes were added and subtracted including Accounting, Business Management, Business Law, Business Math, and a German Heritage class. One particularly interesting project of the Heritage class was bread making using saw dust as a substitute for part of the flour as was done by very poor families during a famine in Germany. With the help of the Home Economics teacher, Mrs. Juanita David, they came up with a workable recipe. Upon removing the freshly baked bread from the oven, the high school principal happened by the classroom, thought it smelled good and asked for a slice. They were all very willing for him to try it first! (He never did find out about the sawdust.)

Probably the biggest change during Bill's years of teaching came with the advent of the computer. Bill always felt he needed to work especially hard to make his classes interesting in order to encourage students to sign up for his business classes. So Bill gained a reputation of sorts for innovative lesson plans. There were lessons involving the reloading of shotgun shells which definitely wouldn't be allowed in today's classroom. They studied changing English units of measure into Metric units by outlining the shape of the Battleship Iowa on the football practice field. One the custodians even volunteered to mow the outline into the grass for them. The class studied percentages using a muzzle loading shotgun and shooting pellets. They did this on the FFA plot south of the school. As you might guess, the guys were particularly interested in taking Bill's classes.

Bill especially enjoyed teaching Driver's Education because the kids were eager to do well as they all wanted their license as soon as possible. Two things that Bill felt were especially important in this rural community were learning to drive on gravel and night driving. Therefore, all of the students were required to spend one hour out of their six hours behind the wheel driving on gravel roads. However, the night driving experience was optional.

They did have one especially "exciting" night-time driving experience when they came upon a hog on the road near Irwin. They didn't swerve and went right over it, denting the gas tank and covering the underside with blood. The car was always kept in the bus barn and that building was especially "ripe" the next morning.

Bill's teaching career came to an abrupt end in February of 1997 when he suffered a second heart attack at school on his birthday. The heart doctor strongly suggested that he "retire." Thus Bill's career of thirty-two years came to a close.

Bill feels fortunate to have been able to enjoy eleven years of retirement so far. He has lots of hobbies that keep him as busy as he wants to be. Because Pat continues to work, Bill has taken over the cooking chores. He continues to enjoy his buckskinning activities, going to seven or more camp-outs a year. He really enjoys reading and the topics are many and varied. Bill has developed an avid interest in the history of World War II.

Pat and Bill have done quite a bit of traveling during past few years, either on bus trips or on their own. Their bus trip to Nova Scotia in the fall of 2007 was truly memorable.

Pat and Bill remain close with their children, Karol and Scott: Karol Dammann, lives in Manning with her two kids, Kayla, who graduated in 2009 with the first combined class of IKM-Manning and Alex, who will graduate in 2010. Karol graduated from MHS in 1986, and has been the Director of Nurses at the Manilla Manor since 2000; Scott graduated from MHS in 1989. Scott and his wife, Carrie, live in Des Moines with their three children, Cole, Morgan, and Jessica. Scott is a CPA and is the CFO of Clarklift of Des Moines.

Bill wants everyone to know "Manning was a great place to teach and a wonderful place to retire."