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Steve and Cheryl Arp, passionate about kids

What's it all about? The KIDS

We are Called: A series on St. Paul people taking their faith to work

Paper mache volcanoes. Crocheted bookmarks. Posters that proclaim the value of respect and honesty. “Thoughtfulness” flower baskets on a bulletin board. Cheryl and Steve Arp are packing up the remnants of their classroom years.

In 34 years of teaching, “Mrs. Arp” has crocheted perhaps 600 bookmarks to encourage each young reader in her third-grade classroom. She has baked about that many personalized birthday cakes. Down the hall in this Long Grove, Iowa, elementary school, “Mr. Arp” has inspired a multiplicity of volcano-erupting science experiments. He has told as many weird jokes, much to the delight of his fourth-graders when they’re stymied by a math problem.

This week, when Steve and Cheryl pull their classroom doors shut for the last time at Alan Shepard Elementary School, they will have taught collectively 67 years in this northern Scott County school. (Cheryl spent her first year as a young teacher, “Miss Green,” in Norway, Iowa.)

Wrote one Long Grove parent, “There is not enough that we could do to thank you for making learning fun and a place where the children want to go.” Karen Bernick, a St. Paul member whose daughter Hope attends Alan Shepard, says simply, “They teach with love.”

The town of Long Grove has found a way to honor these beloved teachers who have impressed two generations of children with a love for learning. In June 2008, Cheryl and Steve served as grand marshals for the town’s annual Strawberry Festival. They’ll hand out medals at the Strawberry Run. They’ll probably know most of the kids by name.

Cheryl and Steve are retiring, but caring about kids will always be their vocation. They don’t mind leaving behind the voluminous paperwork, testing, and regulations that come with contemporary teaching. What will they miss? In unison, they respond, “The kids.” Steve brushes away a tear . “We’ve always counted our school kids as our kids,” he says.

But you can bet that “Mr. and Mrs. Arp” will continue to cheer on Long Grove kids from the sidelines of rural ballgames and concerts. The two met as young teachers at Alan Shepard, got engaged, and have crafted a life at the baseball diamond, plays, and concerts of this town of 600.

“Truly one of our strengths is that we genuinely care about kids and their feelings,” says Cheryl. Laughs Steve, “The kids see us as a couple holding hands while we roller skate. I’ll stick my head in her room and see what’s happening.” In lessons of learning and living and loving, they’re role models with the most humble of hearts.

Last year, Cheryl received the WalMart Teacher of the Year award. It has been Cheryl’s “genuine care and concern for her students” that impresses her school principal. “She attends their baseball and softball games in the summer. She calls their parents at night, just to check in on them. She still sends personalized cards to former students as they graduate and as they earn awards or scholarships. She is an exemplary teacher ‘24/7.’ Her kindness stays with children as they progress through school.”

And, amazingly, the Arps’ dual energy for inspiring children has not seemed to wane in these 34 years. Former students have not forgotten the kindnesses and personal touches. One penned, “I was one of the lucky ones who got to be a student of both of you. Thank you for our individual birthday cakes and bookmarks, Mrs. Arp. It made our birthdays more special! Mr. Arp, you were the first male teacher I ever had and your class was always so much fun.”

From threading the filmstrip projectors of the early 70s to creating the Power Points of today, the Arps leave a trail of kindnesses in the Long Grove community. The 40 trees that Steve has planted on the school grounds with science students. The local highways that Cheryl and her kids have cleared of litter. Memories of turkey notes and May baskets, volcanoes and weird jokes.

One of the first babies baptized in the 1952 St. Paul sanctuary, Steve carries his baptismal faith with him to school. It’s lived out in “being faithful, caring for others, being trustworthy.” Cheryl has encouraged her students to be neighborly, to “think about other people.”

And through it all, Cheryl and Steve have invested their whole lives in Long Grove. They live two miles west of town. They raised Amanda and Jason here. “They saw us correcting papers until 9 or 10 at night, doing report cards on weekends,” says Steve. And still these children of teachers became elementary school teachers themselves. “They’re nurturing. They’re natural teachers,” says Cheryl. It’s in their DNA.

When Steve and Cheryl start drawing from their retirement funds, their lifelong callings to care about kids won’t abruptly come to a halt. Cheryl imagines she’ll be back at school helping with projects; Steve likes the idea of coaching or listening to kids read. They’ll be able to attend to their four parents who live in the area.

And when baseball or basketball seasons come around, Long Grove kids will still scan the stands. “Mr. and Mrs. Arp are here!” they’ll shout.

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"Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into friend." ~Martin Luther King, Jr.