|
Valerie Thompson wants to give back |
|
October 15, 2017 |
 |
| Si, Riley, Jace and Valerie
Thompson out together on a recent Scout
popcorn selling expedition. |
|
By Mike Weland
Valerie Thompson freely admits, when she first
begins to talk of her decision to run for
Bonners Ferry City Council, that she originally
felt way out of her comfort zone with “the whole
political thing.” But in a short time listening
to her talk about it, you recognize without
doubt that her motives are pure, and deep
rooted.
 |
| Valerie
Thompson |
In fact, it's a family joke. Not politics, just
that any in her family would ever be political.
Her dad, Bonners Ferry native Mike Manus, moved
to Newport, Washington, in 1985 during a career
with Safeway that began while he was still in
high school in Bonners Ferry. After he retired,
he announced to his family that he was being
appointed Pend Orielle County Commissioner. And
then, finishing out that first term, announcing
that he was running for another term, eliciting
guffaws from Val.
Both parents, she said, instilled in her a
strong work ethic, but never a single
inclination of political aspiration, and
following her dad’s stunning announcement, she
teased him constantly about his politics.
“Now it's he who is teasing me,” she said. But
it's a similar motivation that saw him take his
seat on the Pend Orielle Board of County
Commissioners in 2012 that compels her to run
now.
Both her parents were from Bonners Ferry, but
they moved to Spokane for a while, then divorced
when Val was young. She still remembers moving
back to Bonners Ferry when she was six years
old.
 |
| Valerie's
dad, Pend Orielle County Commissioner
Mike Manus |
“Coming back was magical,” she said, “seeing the
pine trees coming down Peterson Hill on our way
to Grandma’s.”
She's been here ever since, and, except for
college and travel, has never wanted to be
anywhere else.
“I never knew the street names,” she said.
“Never needed to! I remember trick or treating,
the kindness of neighbors. Riding bicycles,
getting together for a game of baseball. To me,
Bonners Ferry has always been the most beautiful
town in the world, even though I grew up to
learn it was called a ‘city.’”
Over the years, she's been told that she should
consider running for public office. A gifted
speaker, she can say a few succinct words and
convey complex concepts and ideas in a way that
anyone can understand, and she has long been
passionate about this place that is her home.
Her heroes, the people she grew up watching and
emulating, were people who loved Bonners Ferry
and who were compelled, like she is, to give
something back.
“Stan DeHart, Helen Foust,” she said. “They
taught all of us. I want my children to have the
same experiences.”
She's been an English teacher at Boulder Creek
Academy for 21 years and has long been active in
the community. In 1990, she earned first runner
up honors in what was then known as Junior Miss,
and she continues to work with the program, now
a Distinguished Young Woman judge in Priest
River.
She teaches confirmation classes at Trinity
Lutheran Church, sits on the board at the Pearl
Theater as their secretary and publicity
director, and she has been an assistant coach in
a variety of Parks and Rec sports, including
soccer and T-ball.
After graduating from Bonners Ferry High School
in 1991, she went to Gonzaga University,
Spokane, where she earned her Bachelor of Arts
degree in English.
She was blessed, she said, to have been able to
come home to Bonners Ferry to live, work,
volunteer, marry and start a family.
Only once, she said, did she come close to
leaving, during the time several years ago that
Boulder Creek Academy closed for six months,
during which time, she and her fiancé were
recruited by a number of programs across the
country. But she used the time to finish her
Master's Degree in Curriculum and Instruction at
the University of Idaho.
“It worked out that I could stay in the
community,” she said. “Boulder Creek has been a
dream job. I love being in the classroom. I only
have four to 10 students, I have traveled, and I
have had great opportunities.”
She and her husband, Si, a counselor at Rawlings
Community Counseling, have two sons; Riley, who
is 10, and Jace, who turns nine this week.
Though they live in the “city” and Val loves her
elementary school, Valley View, both boys attend
Mt. Hall, where class sizes are smaller, and
some of the teachers there are kids Val grew up
with, including Angie Schneurle, who taught both
boys in kindergarten.
“I love Valley View,” she said, “but I know, as
a teacher, the benefits of small class size. I
also enjoy knowing the teachers my boys, who are
in the fifth and third grades, are spending
their days with!”
She and Si are both a big part of their sons'
growing up: the school, sports, scouts and all
that make childhood wonderful. Until now, Val
said, she's been too busy to think of running
for public office.
“My husband has more flexible hours lately, and
he enjoys spending time with the boys,” she
said, “It's given me more time to think about
what we contribute. I've always been telling
people how much I love this community, and how
important it is to give back.”
One thing that swayed her to consider politics,
she said, was working with her BCA students in a
program that had them interview local leaders
and then write a book, “Getting to Know You.”
The experience, she said, not only taught her
students, but gave her a clearer view of the
integral interaction between city and county
government, schools, businesses and all the
facets that make Bonners Ferry a great place to
live.
It also, she said, awakened her admiration for
the people who were always there to make sure
that Bonners Ferry provided children like her a
great place to grow up, people like Darrell
Kerby, Dan Dinning, Gary Aitkin, her aunt Kris
Larson and many more.
“They and so many like them have inspired me to
get involved, to learn and contribute,” she
said.
She cited the grassroots effort of the Kootenai
Valley Resource Initiative, that sat diverse
factions at the same table to discuss
environmental concerns, and with time inspired
different sides to look more at what they have
in common than what their differences were, and
that led to a unique partnership that has worked
near-miracles.
It woke in her a desire that she give back to
the place that gave her so much, and the city
council, she said, is a great place to start.
“Since Connie Wells stepped down, I think the
city council needs a woman's voice,” she said.
“I want to maintain our community, to foster the
city and county and other agencies working
together, to promote and expand the concept that
we're all in this together, our individual
successes work to our mutual benefit. When one
gains, we all gain.”
That and preserving what she had growing up, and
what her boys enjoy now, for the next
generations of kids who will grow up here.
“Kids out riding bicycles and playing, parents
looking out for them. That's my reality,” she
said. “That's my kids' reality, yet we tend to
so easily take it for granted that it will
always be that way. It won't. It takes leaders
like those I grew up watching to see that our
policies preserve the things we hold dear, the
simple things we too often think just are.”
With your support, Valerie looks forward to
having the opportunity to carry on the legacies
she was so blessed to grow up with, and to give
back to a community that has given she and her
family so much. |
|
Questions or comments about this
article?
Click here to e-mail! |
|
|
|
|
