Montoya retiring after 28 years teaching, coaching

Tammy Montoya hadn't really planned on becoming a teacher. "Didn't even cross my mind," she laughed.

"God always has a plan for you. And you don't always know it. And that's where I ended up, you know and it was just, it was perfect."

The Worland High School Spanish teacher is hanging up her hat after 28 years, 11 spent at her alma mater, WHS.

So, how did she get into teaching? After two years of business school at Northwest College in Powell, Montoya and her family were back in Worland and Montoya took up substitute teaching while she tried to figure out what she wanted to do. Her former track coach encouraged her to go back to school and become a teacher.

She took his advice, and went for not only a teaching certificate, but a coaching certificate. "I actually went in for elementary ed," Montoya explained, "and then my Spanish teacher in Montana, said, 'Well, you already know the language, you're already good at it. Why not get a double major and get Spanish under your belt too?'"

Montoya's father was from Mexico, and her mother was from Brownsville, Texas, "right on the border." They moved to Worland at the ages of 17 and 19, respectively. "Once they got here, they never went back," Montoya said. She and her seven siblings grew up in the area, and at home, their parents spoke Spanish.

Montoya was teaching the language she grew up on.

She spent 17 years teaching in Basin before moving home to Worland. She raised her family here and taught her daughters in school. Over the years, Montoya has found that the relationships she builds with her students are the best part of the job.

Montoya said, "People ask, 'Well, why were you there so long? It's just a small town.' And I said, 'Well, that's why. Because everybody's close, everybody works closely together.' We all became really good friends."

Montoya took classes to Mexico while working in Basin, and hosted enchilada dinners for fundraising. "Usually anything that has to do with food is always something that is remembered by everybody," Montoya laughed. Some of her favorite teaching memories were made in the concession stand with her students, selling super nachos.

In Worland, her favorite activities to do with students were skits, where they got to practice speaking back and forth in Spanish. Her students have created storylines about everything from camping trips to bank robberies. "Just seeing them put it all together at the end of the year, you know, at beginning they are like, 'We can't do that,' so they surprise themselves as well, just being able to see what they can do now."

Montoya has also helped coach 27 seasons of track, specializing in long distance. This year, the Lady Warriors girls team won second place at State, missing first by only 2.5 points. "I know what it takes for the longer races, how to prepare for them and just sharing that with the kids and, and then seeing them advance and get better and better. And, and when they finish their top of their game and it's just very rewarding," she said.

Zena Tapia, a WHS sophomore, broke a 39-year record in the 3200-meter run this season. "That was one of the biggest highlights, because Francie [Faure, the previous record-holder] was like a legend. I never thought anybody was ever going to break her records because she was just so fast, so awesome. So to have one of my runners break that 39-year-old record, I'm just amazed."

Some more of her favorite runners to coach this year have been Harley Redding, Jack Bishop and Tyshon Swalstad. "They think they're running their best and that that's as fast as they're ever going to be, you know, and then this year when they came out again, they just put it all out there and they got even better. You have to convince them that they have to believe that they can do it because if they don't, then they are just gonna stay at that level."

Throughout her career, Montoya has tried to get across one message to her students – find something you love to do and try to make yourself a career doing it.

"Start planning, you know, start planning now. Because before you know it, you're gonna be retiring," she said. "It happened so fast for me, and I had no idea that it was gonna be this quick. Now I can just think back and say, 'Wow, I'm here.'"

Montoya has two daughters with babies on the way, and she plans to make trips to visit both of them and their families in Arizona and Colorado after her retirement. "I'll just be a grandma," she laughed.