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lovely day, took the black bike to work today, temp up to 24 celsius, stopped off to take a pic of the bike by the power station.
Ottumwa Courier, Tuesday, March 5, 1974
Page 6, Section C
Commuting Teacher Likes Time to Think
By Terry Hersom, Courier Staff Writer
Ray Prentis, school teacher, headed for work April 9, 1973, after shoveling half a winter's worth of snow out of his driveway.
It was supposed to be spring, almost. Major league baseball's season was to start the next day at points around the country and yet two hours after departure, Prentis had traveled early from his home at 122 Lynwood to the Ottumwa John Deere plant.
The situation was hopeless. Prentis, you see, hadn't made a dent in his daily 30-mile journey to Van Buren High School in Keosauqua.
That was the only day Prentis never made it to school. Thanks to this, school officials in Keosauqua probably didn't doubt his word although the horrendous surprise blizzard had dropped scarcely a flake from Douds eastward.
That's not to say the 43-year-old Prentis has been at the chalkboard for years on end. His school teaching career did not begin until 1968 when, at the age of 37, he graduated from Northwest Missouri State and signed on to teach government at Cardinal High.
Cardinal? Van Buren? Don't look for an Ottumwa teaching connection; Prentis hasn't ever had it so good driving-wise. His log of miles to work, in fact, is somewhere in the neighborhood of 65,000 miles in 5-1/2 years at four different schools.
After two years at Cardinal, Prentis spent two more at Pekin before taking a job at Van Buren last year. From a 26-mile round trip to Cardinal to a 60-mile swing to and from Pekin to a 100-mile journey to make the rounds to Van Buren.
It had to stop before Ray was commuting to another state. So, to save wear and tear on his compact, Prentis took a job at Davis County in Bloomfield this year.
"I've never really minded commuting," Prentis says. "The expense got to be a little too much last year (to Van Buren), though.
"It gives me some extra time to think through my plans for the day."
The unusual distance Prentis drives is not all that sets the friendly Mount Ayr native off from the crowd. All his life Ray has been trying new things, "just because I always wanted to try them."
After less than two years in college, he entered the service during the Korean War. After a four-year hitch, during which he married his hometown sweetheart, the former Patricia Main, Prentis launched into a variety of careers that eventually brought him to Ottumwa in 1960 as a rookie restauranteur.
During a six-year span, Prentis operated three different cafes, sometimes two at a time, while additionally running a catering service.
"I also sold insurance and worked selling wholesale hardware at various times," Prentis recalls. "I don't think I ever did anything I didn't enjoy. I just have always wanted to try a lot of different things. I've always liked to keep busy. It's interesting to see how different things relate to the general scheme of things."
His teaching career has been equally unique. Prentis had seen college wrestling as a freshman in 1949 at Iowa State Teachers College (now UNI), but didn't see his first high school meet until he sat in the coach's chair for Cardinal in his initial year of teaching.
"I hadn't been exactly set on coaching, but it went with the job and I had a physical education minor," says Prentis. "It grew on me real fast."
For a coach perhaps newer to wrestling than some of his charges, Prentis didn't do too badly. In his second year at Cardinal, the Comets won the Blackhawk Conference title.
An assistant wrestling coach at Pekin, Prentis was head coach at Van Buren and presently heads the mat program at Davis County.
"The sport demands a lot of self-discipline, and that's extremely important to kids," says Prentis, who also says, "I like the individuality in kids today and I try to be fairly liberal in accepting the ongoing changes in young people."
The only aspect of his diversified background of occupations that is easily explained is Ray's classroom specialty: government. His father, X.T. Prentis, was a Republican Iowa legislator for 22 years.
Ray, naturally, is a Democrat. It goes with the story.
He won't bore you with politics, but the political inclinations of a man who courageously gave up the restaurant business for the less stable life as collegian, must have been given heavy consideration.
"When I was running a restaurant, I'd leave for work before the kids (Tim, now 19, and Julie, 15) were up and get home sometimes after they had gone to bed," says Prentis. "I had to find something less hectic, and so I decided to finish college where I'd left off 17 years before."
Although the busy commuting schedule hardly seems less than hectic, Prentis is not complaining. Teachers have summers to recuperate.
Prentis, for example, found his change of pace last summer working for a Cedar Rapids firm. His job was, believe it or not, a summer's log of 35,000 miles as a long-haul semi-truck driver.
"I always wanted to do that," Prentis explains.
[photo]
AT THE WHEEL - As a veteran commuting schoolteacher, Ray Prentis spends a lot of time behind the wheel of a car. "I don't mind driving," Prentis says. "I find it kind of relaxing." (Courier photo)
Back to taking the bus for a few days. I started reading this book a couple of days ago... It is not what I expected... But I cannot stop now :) It is not a bad book, just not the writing style I usually like... Gotta love the pink bathtub though!! :)
Our daily commute is 25-40 minutes. We have every part of the trip named and do "question of the day" and lately our numbers and signs. It takes quite a bit of energy.
Keith Cotton and Ted Horobiowski with Kris Fransen, accepting on behalf of Mike Harbour (Commute Smart Legacy Award).
ueno station - an old train station where people from the north used to arrive in tokyo with dreams of starting a new life
tokyo japan
To work and back again.
I'm not cut out for this.
I want to be flown to remote destinations.
Stuck in a studio with weird looking models.
Driving in rental cars capturing rain.
Monotony is boredom and torture.
Who'll stop the rain