A mathematical mind

Necessity may open the door of opportunity, but it is for the individual to decide whether or not to walk through. For Glacier High School Principal Callie Langohr, the necessity of purchasing a lawnmower — a seemingly mundane life event — ended up taking her career in a new direction and she embraced the challenge.

On March 20, Langohr was in her office getting her picture taken. She was surrounded by handwoven baskets.

For 35 years, basket weaving has served as a creative outlet for her mathematical mind. Basket weaving is also perfect for making analogies.

Each year, she gives a presentation at the beginning of the school year to incoming freshman. She will show them a large basket she has woven.

“I had this picture in my mind,” Langohr, 64, said, of weaving a purse. “I picked out the colors. Well, I got to weaving and this thing took off. I ask the freshman, what do you think? Does this look like a purse?”

“Very similar to what’s going to happen to you — when you start out your freshman year you have an image in your mind of who you are going to be just like I had the image in my mind when I started that I was going to weave myself a beautiful purse. As you go along there’s a good chance that will change,” she said. “You will still end up in a good spot if you make good decisions, you work hard, engage in school, you’re still going to end up in a good spot just as my basket did. My basket is still a beautiful basket. It just didn’t turn out to be a purse.”

As the analogy is applicable to students now, it also exemplifies her own path after she graduated from Flathead High School in 1971.

Passionate about math she attended Montana State University where she earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics with a physical science minor and the intention to become a teacher.

“I love math. Anything about math, I love it,” Langohr said.

After working for a year teaching math in Winnett and marrying her husband, Mike, a Naval officer, she moved to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii where he had been assigned.

“Because we were sweet little newlyweds from Montana we were poor. And, I mean, we didn’t have a dime to our name,” she said as fairly recent college graduates.

Moving into officer housing, the couple learned that strict Navy regulations extended to their lawn and they didn’t own a lawnmower, or have the money to purchase one.

When a McDonald’s opened nearby, she applied with the intention to earn enough money to make the purchase and move on.

“I went down there and was hired as a crew person at minimum wage,” Langohr said.

Returning to a minimum wage job with a college degree didn’t bother her.

“I grew up in jobs where I worked hard. I was a maid in a motel when I was in high school, a waitress toward the end of high school and in college,” Langohr said.

The lawnmower was purchased, but Langohr stayed on. Even after moving to Bremerton, Washington where her husband was assigned, she continued working in the McDonald’s Corporation. Within five years she worked her way up to store manager.

“The doors kept opening, and opening and opening,” Langohr said. “I ended up having the opportunity to own my own McDonald’s franchise.”

Being from Montana, she was approached to buy a franchise to be built in Havre. With her knowledge and experience within the corporation and her husband’s business background, she took the opportunity. She operated the franchise for 12 years before selling it in 1993.

“That’s a little bit of my message to young people. Sometimes we’re quick to close the door when possibly there’s a huge opportunity waiting on the other side of that door,” Langohr said.

Before selling the franchise, she had earned a Master of Education in Career Guidance and Counseling from Montana State University Northern.

“In my opinion you’re always looking forward,” she said. “I think it’s smart for most individuals to have a couple of options they can fall back on.”

When the Kalispell native moved back to her hometown a counseling position opened at Flathead. She was hired and served in that position for five years. During that time, she attended mediation training out of interest. The training proved to be invaluable when she moved into school administration.

“That training right there has paid great dividends because you end up dealing with people in conflict. That training gave me the confidence, OK, I know what needs to be done to take care of both sides, so that their voices are heard. I know some strategies to help people resolve their differences,” Langohr said.

Always looking ahead, she received her K-12 administrator credentials and took a position as assistant principal at Flathead. After a year, the principal position opened and she was hired in 1999. She served as principal for the next seven years before being selected as a transition principal when designs for Kalispell’s second high school got underway.

Despite the tremendous undertaking of building and staffing a new high school, Langohr was up for the challenge. Here was the chance to help lead a community in shaping the identity of a new school.

“Loved it. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to bring together a team that would open up a new school,” Langohr said. “It’s in my top three things I’ve ever had an opportunity to do in my life.”

She described the experience as a “textbook example” of collaboration.

“We had teachers that left the safe shores of the middle school and the safe shores of Flathead, with stellar teaching and coaching records, willing to pull up stakes and be pioneers,” Langohr said.

These risk takers set the tone when the doors opened in 2007 with Langohr at the helm.

In a school with an enrollment of more than 1,300 students — people are the priority. Over her tenure, Langohr has striven to cultivate a school culture of “grit and gratitude.”

“My role is to inspire — support them so they can soar,” she said about staff and students.

Reporter Hilary Matheson may be reached at 758-4431 or hmatheson@dailyinterlake.com.