West Wendover first and only band and choral director, Patty Eklund announced she would be retiring after 19 years of bring the love of music to the Nevada/Utah border town.
“It has been an emotional few days here, in Wolverine Land, as I announced that I will be leaving WWHS at the end of this school year! I am going to be moving to my hometown of Minot, North Dakota, and will be helping my parents out with their businesses as a bookkeeper, and I will sub once in a while when I can in the Minot district, and teach piano lessons. As life progresses, and people age, it is getting harder to be so far away from my family. I am extremely sad to leave, but very excited to be with my family. And, as I told the kids when we were all crying, “If I stay here any longer, I am going to becoming a single Cat Lady, and I don’t like cats!” They laughed, but it is true! HA!
This is really hard for me, and was exceptionally hard on Friday as I started to tell my students. I didn’t really realize that I had affected so many kids, so that made me even sadder, after seeing their reactions. I grew up participating in music and I have been able to share my love with the kids over the past 19 years at WWHS.
Thank you, to all who have supported me and my music program, and our Wolverine students over the past 19 years. I love you all, and really do appreciate everything!
May 20th, at 6PM, at the Concert Hall, will be my final music concert as a teacher, and my final concert with my Wolverine Musicians. Please come and support us, if you can! I am not sure if there are going to be many dry eyes, but I apologize in advance for that, if you can attend!
Mr. Kyllonen will be working hard to find a replacement music teacher for me, so the music program will carry on! Some of my kids thought it was going to be the end, and that is not the case!
I will be back for Homecoming next year, and any casino flights from www.wendoverfun.com, that I can get on. So, you will see my face around!”
Eklund belongs to an ever decreasing number of the original teaching corps that came to West Wendover with the opening of West Wendover High School in 1996.
