From the

Official News Magazine of the Diocese of Spokane

Two schools start 2002-2003 with new principals

by Bonita Lawhead, Inland Register staff

(From the Aug. 22, 2002 edition of the Inland Register)

Two Catholic schools in the Spokane Diocese have new principals for the 2002-2003 school year.

In Spokane, Tom Feldhausen will serve at St. Charles School. In Colton, Guy Spitzer will be principal of Guardian Angel-St. Boniface School.

In 1999 Guy Pitzer of Colton retired from a career as a professional educator. He had been a teacher, coach and principal.

Retirement didn’t last long. This year he replaces Tami Druffel as principal of Guardian Angel/St. Boniface.

“There’s something about education,” he said. “Once it’s in your blood, it never leaves you.”

Pitzer was born and raised in Tacoma. He graduated from Bellarmine, the Jesuit high school in Tacoma, and earned his college degree at Central Washington University in Ellensburg.

His first teaching job, which lasted nine years, was in the Highline School District in the Sea-Tac area. In his next job, he taught at Winlock High School, where he did his administrative internship.

Pitzer was an administrator for 16 years in the South Whidbey Island School District. He served as an assistant principal four years and as high school principal 12 years.

It wasn’t until retirement that he and his wife, Arlyce, moved to the east side of the state. They became acquainted with the Pullman area when their children were students at Washington State University. The couple decided they wanted to retire in Colton and bought a house across the street from St. Gall Church.

Pitzer’s new position is part-time, which suits him just fine, since he also works part-time at Washington State University in nearby Pullman.

Guardian Angel/St. Boniface School has about 45 students from Colton and Uniontown in grades 1-8. Pitzer admires the commitment and dedication of parents and parishioners in Colton and Uniontown who keep their school operating.

Even though his work has been in public education, Pitzer said he was looking forward to working in a Catholic school. “There’s a full sense of Catholic principles and values,” he said. “There’s also a full realization of success as identified through the Catholic school system. It can be much more than in a public school setting. There’s a real openness and freedom for kids, too, when we’re all on the same page.”

The Pitzers have three children. Two live in Meridian, Idaho, and one lives in Seattle.

During his retirement, he and his wife did some traveling and spent time with their children. Also, said Pitzer, “I was a much more ardent golfer.”

Pitzer looks on his new job as a vocation — “the perfect vocation. I’m really excited to be given this opportunity,” he said. “I feel like it’s time to take this bigger step and give back a little bit.”

Tom Feldhausen of Mica is the new principal at St. Charles School in northwest Spokane. The post is his second in a Catholic school; he was previously principal at Holy Family School in Coeur d’Alene.

Feldhausen is a Spokane native. He grew up in St. Paschal Parish and graduated from the parish school. He graduated from West Valley High School in 1962, and college studies followed at Gonzaga University as well as Eastern Washington University, where he earned a master’s degree in school administration.

Feldhausen’s first teaching job was in the Walla Walla public school system.He taught math and science at the junior high level for two years. He returned to Spokane to be assistant principal at the junior high level at West Valley School, his alma mater.

After West Valley Feldhausen went to Liberty High School, near Spangle, where he served eight years as high school principal. His next post was as an assistant superintendent at East Valley for 12 years. From there, he went to Holy Family School, which was just getting started. At the time, “there hadn’t been a Catholic school in Coeur d’Alene in 40 years,” he said.

Feldhausen was Holy Family’s principal for three years before becoming manager for the school’s building project. In that capacity he worked with the fund-raising committee, the engineers, and the architectural firm. When his duties there were completed, Feldhausen was unemployed. “I worked myself out of a job,” he said.

Feldhausen has been an educator for over 30 years , and he appreciates the difference a “Christ-centered” education can make. “I have a tremendous admiration for the public school system,” he said. “There are really good schools in Spokane and Coeur d’Alene. But in a Christian-centered school we can focus on values and morals. It adds to our mission of touching all areas of a child’s life — mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually. I believe that’s important to a child’s development.”

But even more important, Feldhausen said, is “touching the child’s heart. When we show children that we care, that they are important and accepted, it’s easier to touch their minds. So much of what we do is to model that behavior.”

Feldhausen and his wife, Kathy, have four children and three grandchildren. One of the family pastimes is being outdoors: “backpacking, hiking and cycling,” he said.

St. Charles School has about 240 students, preschool through eighth grade.

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