[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 89 (Monday, June 23, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6101-S6102]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS

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                        TRIBUTE TO MARLENE BURKE

 Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to 
Marlene ``Molly'' Burke of Rutland, VT. After 40 years of dedicated 
service to the teachers and students of Vermont, Molly has decided to 
retire.
  Molly began her distinguished career, inspired by her father, in 1956 
at Pittsford High School when she was 22 years old. After a summer 
abroad, she taught at Essex Junction High School for a short while, 
then moved to Proctor High in 1959. In 1964, she began teaching at my 
alma matter, Rutland High, where she remained for three decades. Molly 
taught history in the classroom, however her interaction with her 
students did not end in the classroom. Molly coached cheerleading, and 
directed class plays as well. Her commitment to excellence and 
dedication to the students beyond normal classroom hours is in the 
finest tradition of Vermont's educational system.
  It was in recognition of her excellence that the Vermont teachers 
elected Molly president of the State chapter of the National Education 
Association in 1989. She moved to Montpelier where she headed the 
largest teachers union in Vermont because she believes that people 
should be treated fairly and equally and she made enormous efforts to 
improve the working conditions within all of Vermont's schools.
  Molly Burke embodies what all educators should strive to achieve. 
Once again, I would like to extend my thanks for her service to Vermont 
and best wishes in her retirement.
  Mr. President, I ask that an article from June 2, 1997, in the 
Rutland Daily Herald be printed in the Record.
  The article follows:

             [From the Rutland Daily Herald, June 2, 1997]

                             Goodbye, Molly

                          (By Kevin O'Connor)

       Here in history class, Rutland High teacher Marlene Burke 
     is relating the story of a seemingly hapless rookie 
     instructor of 40 years ago.
       Miss Reichelt, age 22, taught English, math and social 
     studies, coached cheerleading, directed class plays, snuck 
     short afternoon naps and spent long nights marking papers and 
     lesson plans, all for $8,000 a year.
       Miss Reichelt, barely afloat by June, decided to bail out. 
     Escaping to Europe, she capped her summer with a startling 
     revelation:
       She was born to teach.
       Burke laughs at the punch line. Before she married, she was 
     Miss Reichelt. She gave the classroom another chance. It, in 
     return, gave her a career.
       Burke has taught history for four decades, three of them at 
     Rutland High. Colleagues elected her president of the state's 
     7,000-member teachers union three times from 1989 to 1995. 
     She now heads the association's 200-member local arm.
       Call her The Unsinkable Molly Burke. But exactly 40 years 
     after first leaving the classroom, the teacher has decided to 
     do it again.
       She's retiring.
       ``I love what I do,'' she says, ``but I think it's time.''
       Burke's career was inspired by her father, a German 
     immigrant who believed in the American dream.
       ``He said with education you can do everything, without it 
     you can do nothing,'' she recalls.
       Burke entered public school after graduating from the 
     parochial St. Michael's High School in Montpelier and Trinity 
     College in Burlington. She started teaching Sept. 4, 1956 at 
     Pittsford High, long since replaced by Otter Valley union 
     High in neighboring Brandon.
       Students couldn't pronounce ``Miss Reichelt,'' so she wrote 
     a few hints on the chalkboard:
       Rye (like bread)
       Kelt (like felt)
       They worked too well.
       ``Some of them would spell it Ryekelt.''

[[Page S6102]]

       Miss Reichelt returned from Europe to teach at Essex 
     Junction High before marrying Robert Burke and moving to 
     Proctor High in 1959 and Rutland High in 1964.
       Make that the ``old'' Rutland High. Burke taught at the 
     Library Avenue campus until 1989, when Vermont teachers 
     elected her president of their chapter of the National 
     Education Association. Moving to Montpelier, she headed the 
     state's largest teachers union for six years.
       ``Working conditions are big issues with teachers,'' she 
     says. ``I believe people need to be treated fairly and 
     honestly.''
       (U.S. Sen. James Jeffords, R-Vt., confirmed the union's 
     influence in an impromptu comment last week: ``Teachers can 
     really move things if they get together--Molly Burke can tell 
     you that.'')
       When Burke returned to Rutland High in 1995, her colleagues 
     had moved to an $8.7 million facility on Stratton Road.
       Times had changed from her days at Pittsford High, where 
     her old classroom featured a bulletin board.
       ``I used to try to change it at least twice a year.''
       Burke's new classroom has a bulletin board--and a computer 
     with e-mail, a telephone with answering machine, a television 
     with video-cassette recorder.
       ``The good old days.'' she concludes, ``were terrible.''
       Burke may teach the past, but she touts progress. She likes 
     today's longer class periods. Today's collaborative contract 
     negotiations. And, an occasional nose ring or tongue stud 
     aside, today's students.
       ``They say kinds have changed--they really haven't. Kids 
     are kids. There were kids who misbehaved then, there are kids 
     who misbehave now. Most of them are good.''
       Burke teaches a 130-year period of American history from 
     the end of the Civil War to the end of the Cold War. For her, 
     the last half isn't a lecture, it's her life.
       ``I remember exactly where I was when Kennedy was 
     assassinated, when the space shuttle Challenger blew up . . . 
     I try to give the kids the facts, and then bring in the 
     emotions because I lived through it. I think it brings it 
     alive.''
       And sparks questions. Take a recent lesson on the Vietnam 
     War.
       ``One of my 16-year-olds said, You were alive then? You 
     were teaching school?' I could have been talking about the 
     Peloponnesian War.''
       That happens right up to Reagan's election in 1980--the 
     year most of her juniors were born.
       ``I always say, `You remember when . . .' Of course, they 
     don't.''
       That's why students must study.
       ``If you don't learn from history, you're condemned to 
     repeat it.'' she says, paraphrasing the famous quote.
       Several of Burke's past students are parents of her present 
     students. Alumni also sign her paycheck. Michael Dick, class 
     of 1966, is president of the School Board. David Wolk, class 
     of 1971, is school superintendent.
       Although graduates always recognize her, she doesn't always 
     recognize them.
       ``You had one history teacher for a year,'' she replies. 
     ``You forget I had 120 students a day.''
       They also forget she has a life outside the classroom. 
     Burke recalls shopping with her son and daughter when a 
     student approached.
       ``She said, `Whose are these?' She never thought of me as 
     anything but a woman in a room teaching history.''
       (Let alone a grandmother to a 2-year-old boy.)
       Retirement will bring the former Miss Reichelt full circle.
       ``I want to go to Europe,'' she says, ``and out West, and 
     ski in the middle of the week, and not get up at 6 o'clock.''
       Once more she won't be teaching history.
       ``I'll be living it.''

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