My Favorite Recipes - Oct. 22, 2009

Jana Mathia | Oct 22, 20090

Meet Evelyn Beck, St. John

After their first year of marriage, Evelyn and Roger Beck decided they wanted to move about 100 miles from their families in North Idaho. When Roger was offered a job in St. John, Evelyn didn’t at first realize she was returning to Whitman County.

“It’s very interesting that we ended up living here,” Evelyn noted.

Evelyn Dugger was born in Tekoa and her father was from Garfield. Her family homesteaded in the area in the late 1800s. As a young child, Evelyn lived in Palouse and Albion, but by the time she was six her family had moved to the Coeur d’Alene area where she grew up. She married Roger, who had grown up in Kellogg.

They came to St. John for a teaching job interview. At the end of the interview, Roger was offered the job. He and Evelyn drove around to look at the town and fell in love with it.

Roger has been teaching at the St. John High School for 42 years, 40 of which they have lived in the same house.

“This is his first teaching job, only teaching job,” Evelyn said. Roger teaches vocational business and has been the senior advisor for 35 years. He has also taught speech and drama classes and has coached several clubs and sports.

“He loves kids,” Evelyn noted.

Two years after the move to St. John, Evelyn’s father died and her mother and two youngest sisters followed them to St. John. Evelyn went from being related to no one in town to being related to many people when her mother remarried into a long standing family. Her sisters both graduated from St. John and one married into another local family.

Evelyn stayed home and raised their three children until 1987 when she started working at the business office at the St. John school district. Eleven years later she took on a bigger challenge when St. John and Endicott formed a cooperative. The business manager for Endicott left and Evelyn was asked if she’d oversee both schools.

“It was a wonderful opportunity,” she recalled. She likes working with numbers and enjoyed the challenge of running the numbers for both districts.

Evelyn said she liked being support staff.

“Dedicated teachers put in a lot of hours,” she said, knowing from experience the work Roger puts into it. As a support staff, she felt it was her job to set the best stage she could for the teachers to work on.

Evelyn worked for 21 years and recently took an early retirement.

“Basically I quit because I have eight grandchildren,” she said. “My summers were getting too full.”

Summer is a busy time for the business aspects of a school, what with budget planning and such. Evelyn realized her grandchildren were growing up quickly and wanted to spend time with them, which can take some time as they are spread out over Washington State and in Connecticut.

Evelyn is also very active in her church and teaches Bible study classes, many in her own home.

“I am passionate about the Bible,” she said. She also shares that passion by once a month writing devotional messages for the St. John Community Current newspaper.

Evelyn recalled when a friend asked her to go to a Christian writers group in New Mexico, even though she’d never written anything like that. While going around the table doing introductions, everyone told what they had written. Their group included publishers and authors. When it came to Evelyn’s turn, she told everyone she wrote school board minutes.

Evelyn and Roger also like to travel.

“I’ll get on a plane and go anywhere,” she said. Each year they find a new place to visit. She likes places with history, and Roger likes places with scenery, so they try to find places that meet both criteria.

“Every area has its own beauty.”

Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies

1 egg

1 package cake mix

1/4 cup water

2 cups oats (1 minute)

1/2 cup butter

1 cup chocolate chips

1/2 cup shortening

1/2 cup nuts ((optional)

1/2 cup brown sugar

Heat oven to 375. Beat egg, water, butter, shortening, sugar and about half of the cake mix (dry) until smooth. Stir in remaining cake mix, the oats, chocolate chips and nuts. Drop by spoonfuls about 2 inches apart onto ungreased baking sheet Bake 10-12 minutes. - About 6 doz

I usually use chocolate cake mix and chocolate chips, but have used strawberry cake, lemon cake, yellow cake, etc and then varied chips from white chocolate, chocolate mint, peanut butter, butterscotch, etc.

Cinnamon Roll/Dinner Roll Dough

Mix and rest 15 minutes:

3 1/2 cups warm water

1 cup cooking oil

3/4 cup sugar or 1/2 cup honey

6 Tbsp. yeast

Add the following and knead until smooth:

1 Tbsp. salt

3 eggs

11 cups flour

Shape into cinnamon rolls or dinner rolls and place in greased pans. Let rise 10 minutes.

(This recipe makes multiple pans of rolls.)