Edwick Joseph Brown
May 20, 2020
Houma Tunnel Closed due to Accident
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It’s natural for teachers to come and go at every school, but once in a while, one winds up sticking around long enough to become a person that no one can imagine that school without.
For St. Matthew’s Episcopal School, that person is Pauline Kelpsch, lovingly known as “Coach” by students, parents, staff and essentially everyone who knows her.
Since coming to SMES in the 1970s, Coach has served as a physical education teacher, science lab instructor, 4-H Club leader, yearbook designer, Lego team adviser and more.
To her students, she’s become famous for dubbing everyone “George,” constantly asking for “five dollars,” introducing them to science experiments and creating unique P.E. experiences.
After 44 years at SMES, though, Coach has decided it’s time for her teaching career to come to an end.
“I’m very sad, but I’m also happy that I’ll be able to come [back] and do the things that I love to do,” Coach says.
Coach came to SMES in 1976 when the school was searching for a seventh grade teacher and a P.E. teacher. She spent a year as the seventh grade teacher, taking other classes to P.E. while her students attended their enrichment classes. The following year, the school hired her as solely a P.E. teacher.
Since then, she has watched countless students pass through SMES and grow up, even teaching generations of families.
“I’m teaching children of the children I taught, and I see a lot of my kids are teachers and doctors and lawyers and just great people, and just knowing maybe I had a part in that is what touches my heart the most,” Coach says.
For Coach, the last 44 years have been defined by memories made through moments like field days at Ardoyne Plantation, SMES’s annual Just Kids at Art fundraiser, the formation of the school’s first Lego team and simply teaching her students fun new activities like archery.
Just as she was around for the fun moments, Coach experienced some of the school’s most defining moments as well.
In 2010, the historic St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church, where students gathered together every day for morning chapel and announcements, burned down in an early-morning fire. In 2015, construction of a new church was completed.
“One of the most heart-wrenching moments was when I came, and the church was burned down. That was heart-breaking,” Coach says.
Coach says she has always appreciated how SMES has felt like a family, from the way that students love their teachers to the way that everyone at the school looks after one another.
For Coach, who has dedicated a large part of her life to looking after her loved ones, this especially hits close to home.
“I’ve taken care of family members all my life since I’ve been here,” Coach says. “Always here, it’s been like a family that understood if I had to leave or there was an emergency or if I couldn’t come in for a day or two.”
It’s no surprise that Coach developed a love for physical education in her lifetime.
After obtaining her undergraduate degree from Nicholls State University, Coach decided to stay at the university for an extra semester to pursue her master’s degree and participate in athletics, as she did not have the opportunity to do so in high school since Title IX had not yet passed. She played both tennis and volleyball at Nicholls, which were both test programs at the time.
When she took over the P.E. program, she made it her goal to motivate children to love P.E. and exercise. Sometimes, it took a little creativity to make that happen.
“When I first came here, I had a van,” Coach laughs. “I would put the P.E. class in the van, and we would drive down, and there was a VFW bowling alley…every Friday we’d go bowling…Then we’d go down to Legion Park and play tennis.”
In the last 44 years, Coach has certainly found ways to leave her mark on SMES in more ways than one.
For example, the school’s yearbook began when Coach decided to print the first one herself in 1979 at the local printing shop at which she had worked since she was 15 and continued to work during her first years at SMES.
“1979 was our first yearbook that I published at the printing company ,that I printed myself. A couple of the kids asked me if we could have a yearbook, so we did,” Coach says.
Above all, though, Coach wants her students to know that she is always there for them and that they’ve all left their mark on her.
“They’ve all made an impact on my life, and I thank them very much for being able to teach them,” Coach says.
Even as she gives up teaching, Coach says she plans to spend her time helping out at the school with the yearbook, 4-H and in other capacities ― when she’s not fulfilling another post-retirement plan, that is.
“[I want] to go to Disney World [when] it ever opens again,” Coach says.
Editor’s Note: I am one of the blessed individuals who can say Coach Pauline was my coach, as well as my son’s. The memories he and I both share of Coach will last our lifetimes.
Love you, Coach! From: George 1 (Mary Downer Ditch) and George 2 (Jackson Ditch)
