532 Spring 2015.pdf

Ron Briley: Legendary Teacher
The number of years Ron Briley served as Sandia Prep’s
Assistant Head: 26
The total length of Ron Briley’s tenure at Sandia Prep:
37 years
The number of students Ron Briley has inspired and lives he
has touched: Thousands.
The impact Ron Briley has made? Immeasurable.
Ron Briley grew up in Childress, a tiny town in the Texas
Panhandle, where he remembers picking cotton. As a boy, he was
not a great student. His family was poor, and there were no books
in the house. “I was not inspired by high school. But I was selfeducated;
I read a lot,” he says.
All that changed when Briley enrolled at West Texas State
University, the first of his family to attend college. There, he
discovered a passion for history. “There was a professor there
named Pete Petersen, who had come from the University of Iowa;
he’s retired now. He was a major figure in my life; he took me
under his wing.”
Briley went on to earn a B.A. and M.A. in History at West Texas
State, before coming to the University of New Mexico for his Ph.D.
While accepted at several graduate schools including Iowa, his
mentor’s alma mater, Briley chose UNM because he was offered a
full assistantship.
By 1978, Briley had finished his coursework for a Doctorate in
History and completed his comprehensive exams; he needed to
finish his dissertation. He took a job teaching at Sandia Prep,
planning to teach for just one year, long enough to finish writing
his dissertation on agrarian protest politics in the 1920s.
A funny thing happened. Briley fell in love with teaching high
school at Sandia Prep. “You can be as academic as you would be
at a university – but you get to know your students in a way you
cannot as a university professor,” he explains. “Teaching at Sandia
Prep is a lot like teaching at a small liberal arts college,” Briley
adds. When asked what has kept him here, he does not hesitate.
“The students!” he declares.
Briley’s favorite thing about being a teacher is “trying to make
the world a better place. You have an opportunity to influence
the future.” His faith and hope in the future drive his passion for
teaching. “Teaching is never boring; it is different each day. When
you work with kids, you never know what they will say, do or
think,” notes Briley. “Like my colleagues, at Prep I have been able
to teach my passions.” Along with teaching at SPS, Briley also has
enjoyed teaching at UNM Valencia for 20 years.
Briley teaches American History, a required course for SPS
juniors, along with two very popular senior electives. The first
is Introduction to World Cinema; the other is Contemporary
American History Through Film. The latter has become legendary.
So much so, in fact, that for the last few years, demand has driven
Briley to offer a Tuesday evening class during SummerPrep for
alumni and parents. This summer’s class will focus on the films
of actor/director Paul Newman. (There may be a few slots left; if
interested, email Briley at rbriley@sandiaprep.org.)
Continued on page 17; see “Briley.”
Rick Wettin: Respected Teacher,
Coach and Mentor
When Rick Wettin came to Sandia Prep to teach and coach,
Sandia Prep was just starting its seventeenth year on Osuna Road;
and the School had been co-ed for only nine years. He got the
job offer while traveling with his children from California up to
Calgary and back. “It was a big moment,” he recalls.
After earning his first bachelor’s degree in History and Political
Science and a teaching certificate from the University of New
Mexico and an Army career that included teaching, Wettin
had returned to UNM to earn a second bachelor’s in Physical
Education and Health. “I realized that I enjoyed teaching but
did not enjoy being confined inside all day. I wanted to be able to
teach outside the classroom,” he says.
Wettin was hired to teach P.E. and serve as co-head coach for
Varsity Soccer, but says he quickly realized that fellow coach Juan
Ramos was the expert and happily deferred to him. Over the
years, he has coached Junior Varsity (JV) boys soccer and served as
the Girls Varsity Basketball coach, a role he filled for 28 years. For
the last few years, he has coached the 6th Grade Boys Basketball
team.
Throughout his tenure, Wettin’s duties have run the gamut, from
serving as faculty sponsor for Student Government (SGA) and
being in charge of all the lockers on campus to advising at every
level from 8th through 12th grade and planning back-to-school
camps for every grade. He was a key member of the leadership
team for most of his tenure, serving as 11th and 12th Grade Dean
(Coordinator, as it was called then) for fifteen years and directing
graduation from 1985 until 2011.
As for what has kept Wettin at Sandia Prep for 33 years, he
answers emphatically, “No place could replace this!” He says he
has had opportunities to move on, but made a conscious decision
to remain here to coach and teach. “It has been an adventure,” he
says.
Wettin explains his two favorite things about teaching and
coaching. “First, it’s the kids; they are good material to work with,”
he says with a smile. “The other thing is interacting with a really
good group of faculty and administrators every day.”
One of the most significant challenges Wettin faces each day is
helping students learn the difference between right and wrong,
and how to make good decisions – while still remembering that
they are just twelve to eighteen years old, and helping their
parents remember the same thing. He says that perspective is key.
“When I was young, I was not a great student, and I caused a lot
of trouble; but I grew out of it well. We all learn by ‘bumping our
heads’ and ‘skinning our knees,’” he adds.
Unlike many adults whose career path was sparked by a particular
person or teacher, Wettin says that his path was actually inspired
by a subject area. “I loved history. I took summer classes,
voluntarily, at Sandia High, because I enjoyed it so much. But
then as a History major at UNM, I asked myself, what am I
Continued on page 18; see “Wettin.”