Laura Waegner did not set out to challenge for a Guinness World Record.
She just happens to love teaching. And kids. And her Catholic faith.
All of which is why, when she retires at the end of this school year at age 79, Waegner will have taught at Holy Angels in Aurora a jaw-dropping 54 years.
And that started a great rumor she was about to set a new record for the most years a woman has taught consecutively at one school.
Turns out the 4-foot-11, white-haired social studies teacher is just a few years shy of that magic number, which according to the Guinness record book is a teacher from the United Kingdom who retired in 1958 after working at the same school for 56 years, 153 days.
But Holy Angels staff says that does not take away from Waegner’s status as an “institution” at the Aurora school, where she’s now teaching the grandchildren of students she had back when she first started in 1970 with a salary of $6,825 a year.
Longevity aside, the impact she’s had on staff, teachers and parents alike makes her “the star of the school,” insists Principal Tonya Forbes, who has worked with Waegner for 25 years, first as a fellow teacher and, for the last 14 years, as the leader at Holy Angels.
“She’s funny, she embraces technology … and she has such a heart for those kids,” says Forbes.
Those sentiments are shared by other colleagues, including two second-grade teachers who not only learned from her example as fellow educators at this Catholic school, but also had Waegner for social studies four decades apart.
“She just has a way with kids you don’t see all the time,” says teacher Ann Classen, who graduated from Holy Angels in 1979 and remembers “Ms. Waegner was always coming up with something new all the time” as a way to keep kids excited about learning.
And, adds first-year teacher Kaleigh Lentz – a 2015 Holy Angels grad who was even a first-grade student of Classen’s – “Ms. Waegner is always there with a smile and always the first one” asking staff or students how their day is going.
“She is always positive, always excited … it’s obvious she loves being at work every day,” insists Lentz. “She inspires me as much as a colleague as she did when she was a teacher.”
Wagener listens to these words with a servant’s heart.
“I don’t want to be bored, myself,” she says, when I ask about her creative teaching techniques that, among a long list, included making mummies out of baking soda and using 3D glasses to study the ruins of World War II or political cartoons.
Lentz remembers listening to Vietnam War protest songs in Waegner’s class as a way of connecting to that tumultuous era.
When I asked the long-serving teacher herself to name a couple more, she cited the lesson on Michelangelo, where kids taped art paper to the bottom of their desks.
Then, of course, there are those tougher classes on writing research papers, which no one really likes to do, including Waegner.
“But I do get a lot of enjoyment” when her students come back as high-schoolers and thank her for teaching a skill that put them ahead of the game, she says.
Tackling the day-to-day drama that often comes with junior high, particularly this generation whose many distractions include social media, is not every educator’s cup of tea, notes Forbes. But Waegner has always embraced that age group with high expectations, she adds, and has never once complained or gone to administration for help with any situation.
“She just knows how to figure it out,” says the principal, adding that Waegner is “no pushover.”
While sixth-graders might “go in a little scared of her,” she continues, “by the time they graduate eighth grade, they talk about how much they will miss her.”
Waegner tells me she has managed to stay relevant to students not by knowing the latest social media trends but by maintaining a sense of humor and “not taking myself too seriously.”
Kids sometimes grapple with the fact she was born in 1945 – just as World War II was ending and eight days before Franklin Roosevelt died – but they really do connect to her personality, say colleagues.
“I tell them, I am old and you are young, we can learn together,” Waegner says matter-of-factly.
With an attitude like that, it’s no wonder making the decision to retire did not come easy.
“Even talking about it I get a little teary-eyed,” admits Waegner, who has started the process of sorting through over five decades of teaching material, trying to determine what to throw out and what to pass along to the person who will be tasked with filling her shoes.
“But I’m looking forward to this new thing I’m going to do.”
Which, it turns out, is more teaching. Only this time she will be working with adult immigrants at the Dominican Literacy Center on Aurora’s East Side.
“Just a couple days a week, she adds. “And I don’t have to get up so early … I can have two cups of coffee instead of one … I won’t have to worry about not being able to take a bathroom break until my planning period.”
Nor will Waegner, who acknowledges a few issues with a flat foot and some arthritis, have to worry about maneuvering icy steps, sidewalks or parking lots in those early hours when she arrives at school.
Still, when that moment comes she leaves her classroom for the last time, it will be bittersweet.
Holy Angels, she readily notes, is more than a workplace, it’s a family – Classen picks her up every morning to make sure she gets to school safely – that has been there for her through some tough times, including the death of her only child, Bill, when he was 21, and the death of her husband Ed in 2021.
That sense of family will be on full display at the school’s Seraphim Ball March 16 at Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove.
This annual Holy Angels fundraiser includes dinner, dancing and the usual raffles and auctions. But the event will also honor Waegner for her 54 years of service, “and letting her know how much we love her,” says Forbes.
“Is she slowing down? No,” insists Classen. “We always rely on her to bounce things off of … we are so honored to teach with her.
“She will be missed.”
dcrosby@tribpub.com
