The below article is an extract from the Kepnock State High School 2016 Yearbook, "Kalori". Article written by Camryn Pegg.
Cheers, Mrs Egan
MAKING YOUR WAY IN THE WORLD TODAY TAKES EVERYTHING YOU'VE GOT
Hope becomes the blazing flare guiding your journey on the path of earned success. People, not things, affect our life's journey and have the most significant impact. Our teachers have an unexpected influence and the best of these teachers relish in the role. Mrs. Karen Egan was one of these teachers; one of the greatest Kepnock State High School has ever seen. A truly remarkable teacher of English and HPE, and Kepnock State High School was honoured to have kept her as long as we did. Despite retiring this year, she is renowned for her mothering nature towards students and staff. Her infinite support and belief in each student's potential have allowed masses of students to succeed and excel at school and in life.
Mrs Egan encounter her own hindrance is in her teaching career which endured 30 incredible years. She began teaching in 1977 at her old schools Bowen State School and Bowen State High School to 1979.
TAKING A BREAK FROM ALL YOUR WORRIES SURE WOULD HELP A LOT
In 1984 she became pregnant with her eldest child and subsequently had to resign from teaching in 1985 as there was no other form of leave available for her to take. Nonetheless she missed the challenge of shaping young minds for the future and starts at a fresh after a 10 year break in 1994 with casual and contract work at Bundaberg State High School.
WOULDN'T YOU LIKE TO GET AWAY?
After enduring three long terms at Bundy high, Mrs Egan realised that the grasses and uniforms were greener on the other side of Bundy.
SOMETIMES YOU WANT TO GO…
… to Kepnock SHS, where she was loved respected and admired for 22 unforgettable years, 1995 to 2016. Despite Knox reputation for housing some very challenging students Mrs Ros Coombes assured Mrs Egan that Kepnock was the best kept secret in town. Needless to say this became Mrs Egan's mantra famed and celebrated amongst the Knot community. Her legacy began from the very start where Mrs Egan and Mrs Coombes were part-time teachers together system that was embraced with open arms by students and staff.
WHERE EVERYBODY KNOWS YOUR NAME, AND THEY'RE ALWAYS GLAD YOU CAME
Her principal belief is every kid is wonderful; showing a little care goes along way, and really aids in moulding the pliable clay students into the best they can be. Everyone also has a Storey and she knows them all, with her heartening ability to remember faces names and the whole family tree! Her groceries trips are like the notoriously lengthy wait in the post office line except she'll know exactly who she's talking to and poor Mr Egan will be standing by listening to another recital of the good old days watching the frozen peas thaw and the ice cream melt.
Mrs. Coombes recapitulates her memory flawlessly, “There is supposed to be 6° of separation between everyone on the planet. With Karen Egan it was only ever 3 degrees of separation, and if someone was from North Queensland, it was only ever 2 degrees. Sometimes less."
She has an amazing relationship with every student she teaches, and can trace back to the first time they met two decades down the track where she is training them to teach or teaching their children. Classic examples of this extended connection come from Mrs Kylee Giles who was a student teacher at Kepnock in 2001, mentored by Mrs Egan for 10 weeks. After shadowing Mrs Egan, she described her experiences with her as a “… big influence on my teaching career and how I", which we can see brought nothing but positive a work ethic and affectations.
YOU WANT TO GO WHERE PEOLE KNOW, PEOPLE ARE ALL THE SAME
There is an extraordinary Kepnock unity, which Mrs Egan has always believed in, the way Keppies forever stick together. When she visits Kepnock every now and then, the camaraderie is unmistakably evident one step inside the gates. She's immediately chatting away, reminiscing with unhurried gossips and chinwags, which are always cup short by those pesky classes (saved by the bell!) nevertheless, the conversation will predictively end with an indisputable “We'll do coffee!"
Mrs. Egan wholeheartedly deemed Kepnock 'more than just a school', in its family like community. She and her husband consistently displayed incredible support to Kepnock, approximating her faithful, familial attitude, where they came to every school function together. Mr Egan's attendance with Mrs Egan was just so routinely expected to the point. He was voted an 'honorary' teacher of Kepnock High.
Mrs. Egan was an innovator at Kepnock, setting the trends and leading the way. She initiated a famous Kepnock rite of passage – dance and etiquette classes for the senior formal. Therefore, by entailing the assistance of Mrs Egan, they began the elegant and respected tradition of proper dance and etiquette at the annual senior formal. According to Mrs Coombes, Mrs. Egan would spend weeks identifying 'modern' music to teach the Gypsy Tap, Waltz and Boston Two-Step. B Block Staffroom would become a temporary ballroom as she would order HPE teachers to dance around it at morning tea to determine the beat and instructions. The Keppies' prompt arrival and presentation skills were acknowledged and acclaimed among many spectators. It was a brilliant technique to teach dancing and etiquette to all, with no one left out of the fun festivities.
YOU WANT TO BE WHERE YOU CAN SEE YOUR TROUBLES ARE ALL THE SAME
Any teacher or student you ask Will express Mrs Egan's motherly character towards students, and the staffroom as well. She really had that 'mother figure', an incredibly caring and nurturing nature, towards everyone. This was patent in her inevitable role as an Interschool Sports' coach. For years, students have begged Mrs Egan to coach their sporting team, and how could she refuse? Her logic never strayed from “If I don't coach them, they won't be able to play…" right up until her final term of teaching, she was coaching. In term one 2016 a squad of relentless year 10 girls pleaded for Mrs Egan to be their coach begging be teaching and bribing in every imaginable way… And boy was it worth it!
Mrs. Egan was a prominently successful sports coach for an eclectic range of sports over the years including tennis, netball volleyball and basketball. For seven years straight Mrs Egan Lead the open girls basketball team to premiership victory. She and her teams always had invigorating fun in their games and training.
Her momentous teaching achievements as an English teacher have been living in the shadow of her equally exceptional feats in the HPE and sporting roles. Mr Mick Davies credits Mrs Egan with tremendous respect the admirable work she did in bringing to light the potential of many students in her English Communications classes.
At least she wasn't just sitting around watching the grass grow for 22 years… But then again, she was! Mrs Egan was at Kepnock long enough to literally watch the Oval grass grow from nothing. She can recall when, eons ago, our lush green oval was nothing but a sparse expanse of dirt, dust and prickles, and the HPE faculty was prohibited from using the oval. The legendary groundsman at the time Garry Lawton who has since passed away painstakingly grew the entire oval from a few meagre strips of grass.
Slowly but surely that grass grew much like Mrs. Egan's timeless memory here at Kepnock.
YOU WANT TO BE WHERE EVERYBODY KNOWS YOUR NAME
Article by Camryn Pegg - extracted from the 2016 Kepnock yearbook, “Kalori".