The last time Flathead Valley Community College had a semester without Jeanie Manion teaching a course, the college only had several hundred students and was nearly two decades away from getting a campus of its own.

Thousands of students later, “Mama Jeanie” is calling it quits at the end of this school year to spend more time with her grandchildren.

The 71-year-old gave 40 years to FVCC, not to mention five more years in the late 1960s at Elrod Elementary School in Kalispell, and has taught courses for several years at the Community Action Partnership of Northwest Montana building in Kalispell.

She said attitude is the single biggest part of taking education seriously.

“The students are very down when they come in here,” Manion said. “But smiling is the big thing in my classroom. I always take a picture with them before the class and after, and they are always smiling in the after picture.”

Her attitude has turned around many students who struggled with traditional education. Her students have gone on to be counselors, surgical and X-ray technicians, and hold some government positions. It’s Manion’s belief that learning should be accessible for everyone.

“She cares about each one of her students and they love her for it,” said Fran Cavanagh, a co-worker in the General Educational Development (GED) program. “She challenges and inspires her students. Present and past students have told me she has been a huge factor in their lives.”

The Community Action Partnership building is an interesting location for Manion because she works with several former students in the office around her current students.

Her longevity at FVCC is such that she has taught children and grandchildren of some of her earliest students.

Manion’s current class, the last one she plans to teach, has students ranging from 16 to 71 years old.

Richard Archuleta, 43, who completed his GED just weeks ago, was nearly speechless when asked to describe his teacher.

“She’s just one awesome lady,” he said. “I was trying to explain why she is such a good teacher to my parents. She takes an old, rusty tool, knocks the rust off and makes it work again.”

Archuleta now holds a job he might not have been able to get without the GED and Manion’s help.

“She listened, that was the No. 1 thing,” he said.

Adult education, by its nature, always has been sort of a rag-tag, non-traditional program at FVCC, with Manion helping to keep things running smoothly over the last four decades.

From her first days teaching English as a second language, Manion went door-to-door to businesses in downtown Kalispell begging for books.

“We had three books for eight students,” she said. “I used the Sears and Montgomery Ward catalogs for vocabulary words.”

It wasn’t just the supplies that gave Manion a challenge starting off. When Jim Corbett, the FVCC director of adult education at the time, asked if she would teach a class in January 1973, Manion thought she was volunteering.

At least until she received her first paycheck.

Manion spent some of her first classes in the basements of bars, the attics of libraries and in other nooks and crannies around Kalispell. She taught in the KM building and the Chamber of Commerce building and the depot building.

“I had to pull an ironing board out of the wall to use as my desk,” she said about one location. 

So when the instructors at FVCC were able to have a hand in designing their classrooms at the new campus in 1990, it was a welcome relief. 

Manion still has a classroom at FVCC’s main campus, but now teaches most of her classes at the Community Action Partnership in a tiny room humming with fluorescent lights and ringed with computers.

She admits it is small, but it has served her well as she helps the last of her students. 

One of them, a young man named Joe Descoteaux, was animated in his praise of Manion.

“As far as I know, she is the greatest teacher I’ve ever been through,” he said. “She actually taught you, she actually sat down and worked with you.”

Over the years, Manion has dealt with her share of “ornery” students, but her boss, Margaret Girkins, said the seasoned educator has sure-fire ways of deflecting potential conflict.

Her students came to know her as both the sweetest woman they had ever met, and one doozy of a motivator.

“To a lot of students she has been a mother figure, a coach, a mentor, a cheerleader or whatever you can imagine,” Girkins said. “She can give you a little kick in the rear when you need it, and a little extra help when you need it as well.”

Oftentimes Manion literally would take her work home with her.

“Early on, I broke my leg,” she said. “I was at home, but my students didn’t want class to be canceled.”

Her students came home with her, put her babies to sleep and then sat in her living room as she taught them with her broken leg propped up on a pillow.

Those babies are grown with babies of their own now, and “Mama Jeanie” is looking to spend more time with them. But still, a 40-year career at one place is not easy to walk away from.

“I’m afraid to quit in a way,” she said. “It’s such a big part of my life.”

She had planned to travel the world with her husband, Michael, but he passed away in 2006. Manion just wants to stay near her family now. 

Girkins is not sure what the future holds.

“She said she was not going to retire before I left. She didn’t keep up her end of the deal,” Girkins laughed. “I hope she’ll want to come back and substitute teach. The door’s always open for her.”

It’s fitting that after four decades of leaving her door open for students of all walks of life, her doors remain open for the future.

Reporter Ryan Murray may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at rmurray@dailyinterlake.com.