Mr. Gagermeier - Dave's Midwestern Ohio Memories

Series of Guest Blogs by an out-of-state Fish Report reader originally from this area about fond memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 50’s & 60’s

Mr. Gagermeier

Our principal during my school years at Ft. Loramie was Wayne Gagermeier. He passed away recently at age 90, just weeks after his wife of 64 years. Mr Gagermeier was an intimidating administrator who ruled in a firm but fair manner. In those days, the paddle was the primary means of discipline, and he used it to the max. Trust me, I, along with many others, were victims of his discipline.

Here’s an interesting excerpt from Mr. Gagermeier's obituary about his years in education:

In everything Wayne approached, he always first made inquiries, researched, and analyzed before delving into a new project. In fact, Wayne was a voracious reader, and could often be found with a book in his hand. It was then fitting that his life's work was in education, working first as a teacher of History in the Fort Loramie Schools in 1957, then becoming a principal there, and finally serving as the Superintendent of Fort Loramie Schools —approximately a 20 year career there in all. He then labored as the Assistant Superintendent of the Shelby County Schools for another 16 years, overseeing Anna, Botkins, Fairlawn, Fort Loramie, Jackson Center, and Russia Schools. One of his greatest accomplishments while serving in that capacity was to help establish the Upper Valley Joint Vocational School that serves all of the Shelby County schools and other nearby districts for students wanting to pursue a vocational career. He worked tirelessly to plan, organize, and finally open the school that has served this region and thousands of students for over 45 years.

After sending an email with his obituary to fellow Ft. Loramie alums, I received the following remembrances about our old principal:

Sister:

I had him for Ohio History in the 8th grade. If he was 20 min. late, he was early. Quite often recently, I saw him at Kroger in Sidney. It's been a long time since I spoke with him. I think he hunted deer on our farm a long time ago. We also sold straw to him.

Friend:
Thanks for sharing his obit. Wayne was fair and demanded discipline as it took a few of his whack's to realize who was boss. Ouch!

Classmate:
During Study Hall, Wayne was always studying for his Master’s Degree and reading with his head down. So I decided to nail him with my squirt gun. He traced the line of water back to my area, then made 3 or 4 of us stand in front of the study hall hoping our gun would leak in our pants (or pee in our pants!). Luckily neither did! He would have killed me! I told him that story last year at (Chemistry teacher) Bob Tenny’s 90th birthday party at the Moose. It pissed him off all these years later and he said something like “Better not try that today!” DIDN’T laugh about it...! He was Mr. Stern till the end.

Classmate:
Fair History Teacher; Not in Paul Amann’s league as a teacher. He and Superintendent Elmer Hinkle made a good administrative team...and they all drove school buses for extra income. Good memories.

Someone had written this in my sister's 1972 yearbook:
No more “Soft Shoe” Elmer Hinkle; "Sugar Bear” Wayne Gagermeier is now Superintendent.

Mr. Gagermeier stayed on as superintendent until 1977, the year of Loramie's first basketball state championship, which created the community spirit and momentum to fund and build the new school alleviating the overcrowding referenced in the yearbook page above.

Brother-in-law:
If I was sent to his office, we'd just started talking hunting and fishing and then the problem didn’t seem so bad to Mr. Gagermeier.

Cousin:

Oh my—his wife just died! No doubt he wanted to join her 

️️

Younger brother:

Yes indeed, I was scared of him at a young age. His nickname Sugar Bear fit him well. One story I remember about him raiding a party at a friend’s house, They had just tapped a 16 gallon keg of beer and supposedly Sugar Bear showed up, picked up the keg with one hand, said yep looks like it was just freshly tapped and took it with him. Not knowing how much that full keg weighed but some of the people there said they were pretty impressed that he just lifted it up so easily. (Editors note: A full 16 gal. keg weighs 105 pounds!)

RIP, Sugar Bear, I mean Mr. Gagermeier.

~~~~~~~~

Receive a weekly email whenever there is a new blog post. Just enter your email address in the designated spot below the blog and follow instructions to set up the notification.