Doug Kimball, English teacher, Redmond High School
“Teaching kids helps to keep me young and in step with what’s happening.”
On August 23, 1973, Doug Kimball received a call from Ed Dorothy, the principal at Redmond High School (RHS). Dorothy was calling because he needed a teacher who could do three things: advise the high school newspaper, teach accounting, and teach English. As you can probably imagine, such a teacher was hard to find but Kimball had all of the credentials necessary to fill this position. Doug Kimball, an English teacher at RHS is retiring after 34 years of teaching in Lake Washington School District – all of which were spent at Redmond High School.
Kimball grew up in Bellevue, attending Stevenson and Ashwood Elementary Schools, Highland Junior High and Sammamish High School. After graduating from Sammamish, Kimball attended the University of Washington (UW), where he planned to major in Business. During his time at UW, he fell in love with English, and would have loved to change his major. However, the Vietnam War was underway, and the draft made that dream impossible – if you changed majors during college, you would get drafted. So, Kimball continued on and received his degree in Business. Following graduation from UW, Kimball was drafted into the army, where he served as a journalist. When his service was complete, Kimball returned to school to receive his teaching certificate. He student taught at Inglemoor High School before receiving the call from Dorothy with the offer to teach at Redmond High School.
While at RHS, Kimball has taught journalism (for 32 of his 34 years), yearbook (for 29 of his 34 years) and English. In the past, he has also taught business, accounting and typing courses at the school as well. In addition to these in-class teaching opportunities, Kimball also has served as a soccer coach for most of his years at RHS, starting the program for the school. Kimball is the first to admit that he didn’t know much about soccer when he started the program but he enjoyed learning more about the game along with the kids. He even had students serve as “assistant” coaches. Kimball coached the boys team for eight or nine years before moving to the girls’ side in 1981. Four or five years ago, he began helping Patrick Scheibe with the boy’s team again. Scheibe is also one of Kimball’s former students, who played soccer under Kimball on one of his early teams.
In his years at RHS, Kimball has earned a number of honors and awards, including Coach of the Year for girls soccer at least twice, a number of first place awards in yearbook contests, and much more. The honors that he is most proud of are student-nominated ones, including being selected by students to hand out diplomas at graduation, being selected to speak at graduation, and being invited to attend graduation activities at Stanford with a former student. In that case, the student was asked to select a person who had an impact on them to join the student for a luncheon at the school in Palo Alto, Calif. Stanford even paid Kimball’s way down to the event.
Kimball has witnessed many changes in his 34 years at RHS. The main thing that he has seen is the change in the Redmond community. He also thinks that the intensity of school has changed for students and teachers. Classes have become more rigorous: when Kimball started teaching at RHS there was one honors course offered at the school. Now, there are many honors and advanced placement (AP) classes offered. He also mentioned that he feels it is harder to be a teacher now than it was in the past; that there are more demands placed on teachers now than ever before. Technology has also changed – from the old mimeograph machines to make copies of materials to training for and using the ACTIVBoard.
When asked what Kimball will miss most about RHS when he retires, he said, “I certainly will miss RHS. I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything.” He will miss the kids the most, saying “I found what I was supposed to do in life: teaching kids is what keeps me young and in step with what’s happening.”