On Tuesday May 7, three works of art were unveiled in the Dwight High School Library to honor the memory of two outstanding former educators, Carol Coulter and Becky Trewartha.
The murals commissioned by Superintendent Josh DeLong were created by the students of the Art 4 class under the direction of their teacher, Patricia Farrell-Levange.
Becky Trewartha
Carol Coulter
Welcome and thank you for coming to this special event where we get to recognize two beloved long time DTHS educators in Miss Carol Coulter and Mrs. Becky Trewartha. We are pleased to have some of their family here today in Carol’s sister, Julienne, and Becky’s husband John, among others. We are also happy to welcome back several of Carol and Becky’s colleagues as well as some former students to this event.
If you went to DTHS between the 1970’s and 2010’s you were no doubt impacted by these wonderful ladies. They literally educated here across generations.
I recall my parents telling me stories of Miss Coulter doing cartwheels down the hallways in the 70’s. While she wasn’t still doing cartwheels in the late 90’s, she was still undoubtedly, the same vibrant and passionate English teacher that she had been for all of those years.
Mrs. Trewartha was the long time librarian at DTHS when libraries looked and operated very differently than they do today. She truly lived and taught through the information age. I remember playing Oregon Trail on a floppy disk as a freshman, sitting right over there, and then learning how to use the internet as a senior to write research papers. I was also fortunate enough to work as a student support staff aide my senior year and I worked in the library with Mrs. Trewartha. She always had a smile and warm welcome.
We could all tell stories for hours about these ladies and the impact that they made for decades on their students and colleagues.
While they are both no longer with us, we hope their legacy will last at DTHS for more generations to come. They both embodied everything that it meant to be an impactful educator. I tasked one of our art classes to create a mural in each of their memories that could be hung in the DTHS library, a special place to both of these ladies. The class and their teacher, Mrs Patricia Ferrell- Levange, took the assignment and ran with it. They did their homework on Miss Coulter and Mrs. Trewatha, and brainstormed ideas to put together the perfect memory of both of them. While I had seen their progress over emails, I have not yet seen the finished product so I am just as excited to see the unveiling of these murals as you are.
Mrs. Farrell-Levange’s Speech
For the past 4 years I have worked with this group of young creative artists and they have thoroughly impressed me. When Mr. DeLong came to me with the idea to create a mural for two amazing educators, Mrs. Trewartha and Mrs. Coulter. I knew which group was going to execute this creative task. I was able to connect with Steve Conman to come in to give my artist a pep talk on what it takes to be a professional mural artist and how to work on a large scale. These young artist worked diligently for 4 weeks interviewing staff and community members, sketching and refining designs, and painting their hearts out. The learned what it took to be a professional artist by working with their client and meeting their needs. I am proud to be here with my student artists and help them unveil these artworks to the public.
We made a mural of both Mrs. Coulter and Mrs. Trewartha. We incorporated multiple elements from what we heard from other teachers. The sunshine because they were rays of sunshine, the 72 books because they both had book related ideas to them and 72 is how long they worked here added together. We looked into everything we could and incorporated everything we saw. The trees were a nod to Mrs. Trewartha. The garden because they were both gardeners. One had cats, so we put the cats there. The other was in a choir, so we had a songbird and music notes. There are 2 hidden easter eggs that are nods to Mrs. Trewartha’s religion. Every single detail we added was a nod to them and their personalities.
–Kaitlynn Streit
–Libby Imhoff
–Milana Bradley
–Willow Tucker
Mrs. Trewartha was a dedicated and compassionate teacher and librarian for 35 years. She has made an impact on many students and staff. The art was inspired by how she started the coffee shop and worked in the library for years. We chose to include a hot coffee on books to showcase the start of Coffee Shop in the library. When designing the ice coffee we put a tree design on the cup to symbolize Mrs. Trewartha. We put a design inside the latte so it had something in it to make people attracted to it when they look at it.
–Mark R.
–Steven K.
We were commissioned by Mr. Delong to create murals for Ms. Coulter and Mrs. Trewartha; our group decided to focus on Ms. Coulter for our piece. The decisions we made and the objects we put in this artwork are inspired and based upon what people who knew Ms. Coulter told us. The environment of the piece is a mix of a theater stage, a classroom, and the outside gardens coming in. The main focal point of the artwork– the large bookshelf– was to symbolize her time as an English teacher, as well as the memories that were made to keep on the shelves and on display. The recurring red and blue paint were some of the colors you could expect to see her wearing. There are playing cards thrown throughout the room; 34 of them, for her years teaching. There are also tickets tacked up and laying about for all of the shows and games watched and trips taken. We also have a cat laying happily content in honor of her two cats. She was known to be loud: the megaphone, as well as the microphone and speaker for her performance at a school show. She was also known for being proud, and kind: we have a wooden mannequin doing a cartwheel and a sign to accompany it; she would perform such acts as a way to boost morale and prove points. Next to the mannequin are a series of books titled “Uncle Jim”; a relative of hers she would always tell stories about. There are also TIME magazines for her original way of teaching classes; students would choose an juicy gossip-filled excerpt and write about it. We have a map of New York which she enjoyed traveling to with her sister, as well as a baseball hat for the games cheered at. Finally, there are two drama masks– both of them happy– impacted by Ms. Coulter and the unending joy she brought.
— Elliot Nichols
— Njomza Asllani
— Will Trainor
— Hayden Colclasure
