“Love what you do and do what you love.”
— Ray Bradbury
Retired Clear Creek High teacher Conradt Fredell willingly gave up his hobbies —woodworking, gardening and music — for seven weeks to return to his other love: teaching.
Although Fredell, 63, retired in 2011, he returned to the school in August to spend nearly half a semester as a long-term substitute, teaching classes he knows and loves: biology, honors biology and Advanced Placement biology.
Fredell filled in for Crystal Onago, a newly hired teacher who was on medical leave, and his last day was Friday. He said it was easier to teach the classes for the first half of the semester because he and Onago have similar teaching philosophies, which should make the transition easier as she begins her tenure at Clear Creek.
Even as a retiree, Fredell still coaches the school’s ski team.
“I’ve enjoyed it,” Fredell said of his time back at CCHS. “It’s been a great experience to come back and help.”
He said his many years of teaching science classes at CCHS — 30, to be exact — made him the logical choice because he already knew the curriculum and the building. In fact, he’s been teaching in a classroom he designed when the high school/middle school was built in 2002.
Principal Elizabeth Gardner said: “He has gone above and beyond in his role as a long-term substitute. He wrote course syllabi, finished organizing the classroom, etc., to help out a colleague in a tough situation. I felt very fortunate to work with him my first year as principal. He retired at the end of my first year. He came back into our building and team without missing a step, and I would expect nothing less. He is a master teacher who inspires, encourages and challenges students.”
Back in the saddle
While his classroom is a familiar place, Fredell came back to find items in different places — not surprising since it had been four years since he worked at the school — and things missing. And he’s spent a lot of time bringing the school’s neglected greenhouse — which he was instrumental in having installed at the school in 2010 — back to a point where botany students can use it.
He threw himself into school life, even dressing as Agent K from “Men in Black” and as Spicoli from “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” as part of dress-up week for homecoming.
“It’s important to be integrated into school life,” Fredell said. He believes teachers should live in the communities where they teach so students and parents see them around town. He lives just outside Idaho Springs.
He welcomed the challenges of returning to teaching.
“The spectrum of kids is always different every week, every year, actually,” Fredell said. “It’s a matter of deciding how to meet the new challenges that the kids may have here.”
A strong presence
Fredell’s friends and colleagues on the faculty have been excited to have him back, if only for half a semester.
Social studies teacher Maria Indrehus, who teaches in the classroom across from Fredell, said it has been nice getting to know Fredell as a faculty member. Indrehus started teaching at CCHS as Fredell was retiring, but he taught her and her daughter.
“It’s been really fun knowing him in a new and different way,” she said of being colleagues. “I adored him in high school. He was a great teacher.”
Math teacher Dave Schuessler has known Fredell since 1981 when Schuessler was one of Fredell’s students.
“(Fredell) has his own teaching style that’s different from anyone else I’ve worked with,” Schuessler said. “He has the ability to engage students and ask unique questions. He has the ability to motivate young people.”
Schuessler has appreciated having a familiar face in the building, especially when half of the teachers are new to the school this year.
Middle school principal Jeff Miller and Fredell developed a friendship over the 19 years they worked together.
“He’s amazing,” Miller said. “There’s nothing that man cannot do. He may be about the most intelligent man I’ve ever met.”
He said if Fredell had a teaching motto, it would be, “It’s all about the kids.”
Miller described a time when Fredell explained biology concepts to a student on the ski-team bus on the way home from ski races.
“He loves to help young people,” Miller said. “That’s his thing.”
About Fredell personally, Schuessler said: “He knows more about every subject than anyone I’ve ever known. You can bring up a topic, and he will be able to cite research on that topic.”
‘Renaissance man’
Some faculty used the term “Renaissance man” to describe Fredell.
His garden, at 8,200 feet in elevation, covers 3,200 square feet, and is more than 50 percent bigger than his house. He grows everything from wheat and barley to vegetables and fruit trees. He sells some of the produce at a roadside stand.
While attending to teaching duties, Fredell had to postpone some garden duties, with some of the produce never harvested.
“My grandfather was a farmer in upstate New York,” Fredell said. “Part of my love for gardening came from him.”
Fredell also has had less time to spend on his music. He plays keyboards and trombone, and has performed in the Original Cow Boy band for years.
In fact, his musical talents are such that he was offered a position in a pretty famous rock band that he declined to name. Rather than the rock-star life, which he said was just wasn’t for him, he chose teaching.
“I’ve played a lot of music, and I’ve written a lot of music,” Fredell said. “I knew I could make money at it, but I didn’t want to be dependent on it for my rent or food money.”
He said the most difficult part about returning to work for seven weeks was giving up time with his wife, Jeri, if only temporarily. Jeri retired in January from her job as a legal assistant in the district attorney’s office in Georgetown. They have been married 39 years.
They met in the band at Northern Arizona University.
“She was the cute blonde up there in the second row,” he recalled.
Even though he’s enjoyed being back in the classroom, he said he made the right decision to retire in 2011.
“You know when retirement is perfect,” Fredell said. “It’s like how you know you love your wife. It’s not one specific moment. You just know.”