Hagness Says Goodbye To Elementary School

The West Wendover elementary School will lose its first ‘home grown’ principal next year when Dawn Hagness moves to head up the Elko County School Districts Professional Development Department.

Hagness made the announcement last week to her school, a place she has called home for 17 years.

In 1994, Dawn Kuntz and her newly minted Teaching Degree arrived at West Wendover Elementary School to teach the second grade from Minot North Dakota.

Now principal of the school where she began her career, Mrs. Hagness is truly one of a kind an award winning educator who spent her entire career in the same school system.

There was nothing really unusual about her arrival.

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For years newly graduated teachers from the Dakotas were recruited to Elko County and many of them began their careers in Wendover.

But while Miss Kuntz later Mrs. Hagness’ start in Wendover was almost run of the mill her, what she has done in the 15 years since has truly been remarkable and for those achievements she is the High Desert Advocate’s Person of the Year.

For most newly hired teachers, WWES is a proving ground. If they are good and stick around for any period of time WWES teachers often transfer to the relatively bigger city of Elko.

Hagness however broke that mold.

She not only stayed at the school she dove into the community. During her first four summers instead sprinting for home the moment the last day of school ended, Hagness stayed in Wendover to coach T-Ball as well as volunteer for a variety of other recreation related task.

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Part of the reason for Hagness summer time activity probably had to do with the fact her future husband Todd. A fellow Dakotan and fellow teacher the two were quickly a couple. Again nothing unusual in that. What was different about both Hagnesses is the devotion the showed Wendover.

The Hagnesses quickly became the schools’ dynamic duo.

They began producing plays that involved entire classes. If children did not feel the call of the foot lights they became technicians and stage hands.

For many of those former students now in their early 20’s those plays represent their fondest memories of elementary school.

In 2002, Hagness left the classroom to become the WWES Literacy Specialist and spearheaded intensive efforts to bring the joy of reading to all of Wendover’s children.

Recognizing that for many parents in Wendover’s Latino community which made up the majority of WWES students could not read proficiently in English Hagness suggested that they read to their children in Spanish.

“it is the act of reading that is important,” she insisted. “Get kids in the habit of reading in whatever language they will become readers.”

In 2004 Hagness was tapped by the school district to train other teachers but district hopes of luring her away from Wendover proved fruitless. Maintaining WWES as her base Hagness hit the long road to jackpot, Owyhee and Elko. Despite her new responsibilities or perhaps because of them Hagness devoted most of her spare time to WWES and was an integral part of the school’s Improvement Team from its beginning in 2002 until today.

In 2005 Hagness returned to Wendover full time as the Vice Principal and Dean of Students of West Wendover Jr./Sr High School where she earned the label as the meanest, most feared and most effective disciplinarian in the school’s history.

“There was nothing in the job description about being liked,” she chuckled. “but I did get the message across, bad behavior was not tolerated.”

In 2006 Hagness was offered her dream job of being principal at the school she started her career.