The end of December marks the 90th birthday of retired teacher, school principal and school district superintendent Owen Corcoran. Owen was born in the Longreach Region of Queensland, Australia in 1929. The oldest of 10 children, he grew up during the Great Depression. Times were hard but his parents made sure he received a good education.
Owen went to a Christian elementary school and graduated from the Toowoomba State High School.
In Grade 11, he was eligible to join a teachers' scholarship class and two years later he went on to the Training College to complete his teacher training. He worked as a head teacher in Queensland for many years. During that time, he met and married Ellen Tootell.
Ellen, the daughter of a First World War veteran and a dairy farmer, was born in 1932. She said, "We grew up poor, but everyone else was poor too so it really didn't matter. I didn't have electricity until I was 21. I was out of school at the age of 16 and I went into nursing. I did general nursing at the hospital for nearly five years and then one year in midwifery. Along with my training, I had to deliver 40 babies to complete my certification. There was a high standard of training at the hospital and they were strict with all of us.
"My parents boarded many teachers over the years. When another one was leaving, I said I was going to marry the next teacher that came to board at our house. I met Owen at a movie and because we were friends, I talked my mom into boarding him at our home. When I came home on my days off to visit my parents, I got to know Owen quite well; we got married in 1957.
"After working nine years in my profession we started our family of four children; Peter (Kristy), Marian (Frank), Paul (Gina) and Kate (Jim). I became a stay at home mom and now we have five grandchildren and one great grandchild."
Owen explained, "In 1969, I was Head Teacher of a K-10 school in Western Queensland. I saw a brochure advertising teaching careers in Canada. Canada was hiring teachers from anywhere in the British Commonwealth.
"The children were getting older and soon they would have to take correspondence or go to a boarding school which was 50 miles away. Neither Ellen nor I wanted someone else looking after our children so their well-being became the deciding factor that brought us to Canada.
"We decided to apply and I was accepted. I was making $4,000 a year and we had no money. We had six mouths to feed and a second hand car. I cashed in my long service leave pay, sold our car and a household of goods and after paying for our airfare we had $1,200 to our name.
"We landed in Prince George and quickly learned that no one wanted to rent to us because we had four children. At first, we walked everywhere; six months later we managed to buy a second hand Chevy and I had to learn to drive on the right-hand side of the road.
"My first job was teaching at Austin Road. I car pooled with other teachers until we bought that Chevy."
Owen's educational background spans two continents and slightly more than six decades. He was a teacher and principal in Queensland, Australia and teacher, principal, Coordinator of Professional Development in School District #57 Prince George before going on to be Superintendent of Schools in S.D. #87 Stikine (from 1980 to 1985) and S.D. #55 Burns Lake (from 1985 to 1993).
He retired from the superintendency in December 1993 and accepted a secondment to the Ministry of Education as the Regional Coordinator (Field Services) for the Northern Region, a position he held until June 1996. This assignment involved working with the 13 northern school districts and focussed on the implementation of the K - 12 Education Plan in all facets.
He has been President of the Prince George District Teachers Association and the British Columbia School Superintendents' Association, and second Vice-, first Vice- and President of the British Columbia Retired Teachers' Association and the Prince George Retired Teachers Association. He is fully retired now after a stint as Secretary of the Prince George Retired Teachers Association and working privately as a Practicum Supervisor with UNBC.
Ellen concluded by saying, "We have been married for 62 years. We go to the gym at least four days a week and we have been exercising together for the past 45 years. When the children were small, I started a day care service and took in boarders to be able to be a stay at home mom. We had no money and our entertainment was a drive out to the airport to watch the planes land.
"We have appreciated everything and each other all these years, and now when we get up in the morning, we appreciate every new day."
