Martin Trautrimas continues to teach after 50 years

Fifty years is a long time to do anything.

Martin Trautrimas is an instructor who is still teaching Spanish -- the subject he began teaching at Fremont Junior High School in 1958.

Fifty years of teaching Spanish in Fremont.

Today, Trautrimas teaches English to Spanish-speaking residents employed by Hormel Foods Corp. and Fremont Beef.

The year he began teaching, 1958, was the year America re-examined the core curriculum of its schools and found it lacking. Sputnik, the Soviet satellite, had been successfully launched and was orbiting the earth. Pressure to improve academic performance was applied to school professionals around the country.

The space race was on so Lloyd Sexton, superintendent of Fremont Public Schools, hired a newly graduated Spanish and German language instructor to implement language in the junior high. All eighth-grade students were to be instructed in Spanish and German. Trautrimas was hired to teach 10 weeks of Spanish and 10 weeks of German to half of the eighth-graders the first semester, then repeat the classes with the other half of the eighth-graders the second semester.

“It was crazy,” Trautrimas remembers.

When these same students entered ninth grade, no follow-up was planned, Trautrimas said. Nothing beyond eighth grade was offered in junior high. Trautrimas suggested a follow-up class for ninth grade the next year.

“Before I proposed this, I was done with teaching here. I remember I even inquired about a teaching position in Alaska,” he said.

Not only was the schedule frustrating and demanding, but the teaching environment was difficult. The entire junior high was contained in one building �” now being used by Metropolitan Community College. And there were 900 seventh-, eighth- and ninth-graders in that building.

“My experiences from that period are most memorable,” Trautrimas quipped. “I was 22 years old. Students were packed into that building like sardines �” goofing off. It was total chaos.”

The road to a career in teaching that included obtaining both a master’s degree and a doctorate began differently for Trautrimas than for most other teachers. He was born in Lithuania. His family left their homeland to immigrate to Germany in 1941, fleeing the communists who had invaded the country and confiscated private property. Trautrimas’ father was a farmer and the land was no longer his to farm. Family members advised them to come to Germany.

“There was a non-aggression pact in place between the Germans and Russians. We didn’t want to be sent to Siberia. Both sides of my family are of German descent,” he said.

The non-aggression pact was soon violated and by 1945, his family had become refugees.

Trautrimas was introduced to English in the refugee camps and practiced it on anyone he could find. When they finally found sponsors so the family could come to America, he practiced on the sailors on the ship. The Hoegemeyer family of rural Hooper acted as their sponsors through Lutheran World Relief.

Trautrimas attended Scribner High School with the encouragement of his sister, Marta.

“Marta wanted an education for herself and made sure I got one. She pushed me to finish high school. Then college,” he said.

Then, his wife, Patricia, continued the task through the master’s and doctor’s degree programs.

Trautrimas may best be remembered for his years teaching at Midland Lutheran College. He had been working with language graduates-to-be at Midland and when the language instructor retired, Trautrimas was asked if he was interested in that position.

He accepted.

Midland students were completely different than those he had taught at the junior high.

“I didn’t have to put up with spit wads and water pistols. Not ever. ... Here, we had to put up with the freedom of college students expressing themselves as individuals liberated from their parents and high school restrictions. It was fun and it kept me young. I kept telling my students I was 39 years old, long after I had passed that age. I still feel 39,” he said.

Many special memories of his years at Midland are connected with the overseas trips filled with students eager to learn of other cultures and lands, an academic study program instituted by Trautrimas.

But then, in 2000, it was time to retire. The academic robes were put in moth balls and the office was dismantled. Stuff was stored. And another door opened. Trautrimas was asked by Bruce Switzer, former plant manager of Hormel, to come to the plant and teach Spanish to management and English to employees.

“Teaching English to people when most of them don’t know any English. ...” Trautrimas shook his head. “I can teach a little bit of fluency, especially vocabulary and pronunciation. Sometimes my students think they know the word and then are frustrated when they can’t make themselves understood because they are not pronouncing it correctly,” he said.

Soon Fremont Beef made a similar request. Trautrimas again has class rooms full of students. It’s difficult to imagine the next turn, the next adventure for a man who seems unafraid of new challenges and who is, after all, only 39.