Sheffels retiring after long education career

After nine years as Flathead County Superintendent and 47 years altogether in education, including here in Columbia Falls, Marcia Sheffels, 69, is finally retiring.

The former English and Spanish teacher taught at the middle school, high school and college level in Missoula, Great Falls and Columbia Falls.

Sheffels said she had an inclination for teaching at a young age — as a toddler, she chose to play “school” with her dolls rather than “house.” Her mother had a short career as a teacher and may have had an influence.

“I’m not sure if there was some osmosis there between her love of education and my playing school with my dolls, but it never went away,” Sheffels said.

As a young student, she was in awe of her teachers. Whether she loved or disliked a teacher, each made his or her impact. Sheffels said she still remembers the names of her teachers.

“The many, many writers and researchers in education saying it all starts with the teacher — I believe that totally,” she said.

A Montana native, Sheffels moved to Whitefish in third grade. Her parents purchased property on Whitefish Lake and built a house — it was cheaper to build on the lake in the 1950s than in town, she noted.

“My family was a hardworking blue-collar family,” she said.

Sheffels continues to live on the lakeside property and has worked hard to maintain it for her extended family to enjoy. She has been a longtime member of the Whitefish Lake and Lakeshore Protection Committee.

Family trips to Mexico motivated her to minor in Spanish at the University of Montana, where she majored in English.

“We were always adventuring,” Sheffels said. “I had an aunt and uncle and cousins who lived in California, and every time we visited them we would drive across the border.”

Her experiences in Mexico touched her on a personal level as much as an educational one. Sheffels saw poverty in the Mexican countryside, away from tourist areas, where families begged for food and children used litter as toys.

“I gained a feeling of humbleness that’s never left me,” she said.

In 1996, after working in Missoula and Great Falls, Sheffels returned to the Flathead and took a job as a middle school Spanish teacher in Columbia Falls.

“It was to be just a one-year commitment but extended into nine years,” Sheffels said. “My goodness, I just became rejuvenated with those youngsters.”

In 2005, Sheffels was appointed Flathead County Superintendent of Schools for a year following the midterm retirement of Donna Maddux, who ran for the state senate.

“I thought it may be a way to extend my passion for education, just in another way,” Sheffels said. “I began a totally new phase of education.”

She ran her first successful campaign to retain the position in 2006, running opposed in the primary and unopposed in the general election. She ran unopposed again in 2010, but this year she chose not to run.

“When I take on a job, it’s 150 percent,” Sheffels said. “A year ago last fall, I had a health issue that put me on the road to self-doubt whether I would be able to live up to my own work expectations for four more years, and that would not be fair to the taxpayers who have been very supportive.”

Sheffels looks forward to the summers and winters ahead, skiing, fishing, hiking, canoeing, boating, paddleboarding and remodeling her home to better accommodate visits from her son, three stepchildren and two grandchildren. But her passion for education won’t extinguish in retirement, she said.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get school and education out of my blood,” she said.