Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Carrie Lipe
Carrie Lipe, new principal at Colfax High School, at her office Monday.
The floors are polished and the halls are quiet.
A few sounds are heard, though, from the principal's office at Colfax High School as Carrie Lipe prepares for the start of her first year on the job.
Beginning July 1, Lipe has commuted from Spokane where she coordinated the West Valley School District dropout prevention program and Gateway to College partnership.
She and husband Kurt closed on a house in Colfax Tuesday.
“I'm seriously excited,” she said. “To count one way, when I drive here, seeing the fields change, harvesting, it's bringing back all the times, memories, years I spent riding my horse.”
Lipe grew up on the edge of Albion, the daughter of WSU anthropology professor Bill Lipe, now 81, who still has an office at WSU.
Her childhood summers were spent with the family onsite at archaeological field camps in the four corners area of Utah, New Mexico, Colorado and Arizona.
“It was like growing up in a farm family, everyone works in some capacity,” Lipe said. “We were that involved in my father's research.”
Living in tents in southeastern Utah, she first had thoughts of the future, watching her father train young archaeologists in field excavations.
“This is why I became an educator,” she said.
Every two weeks, Lipe, her brother and sister would drive into Monticello, Utah, with their mother – the camp cook and lab director – to restock supplies, do laundry and check out new books from the library.
Her jobs at the dig site were first to survey the surface.
“Kids have better eyes and are closer to the ground than the adults,” Lipe said.
Screening and sifting was another task she had as a child.
Lipe returned to the area to go to college at University of Colorado.
“I love learning, and it's hard to keep me away from continuing to go back to college again,” she said. “If you're not always learning, you tend to become stale.”
As a student at Pullman High School, Lipe ran track and cross country and trained horses, did trail rides, rode others' horses for their exercise and even delivered the Lewiston Tribune by horseback at times, for her and her sister's paper route.
At age 16, she worked for Pullman Parks and Recreation in outdoor camps at Klemgard Park and Kamiak Butte.
She has teachers on both sides of her family, both sets of grandparents.
“Education was so deep in my family, I just thought people taught each other,” she said.
After college, Lipe began her teaching career working in curriculum development for two school districts.
Her first in-classroom teaching job was with West Valley in Spokane, where she taught science in high school and middle school for 15 years.
Four years ago, as her son Finn got older, she earned her administration certificate from WSU.
“I didn't want to become a high school principal until my parenting was at a stage that I'd be available for all the commitments,” Lipe said. “So I was waiting until that time.”
Finn graduated from Lewis and Clark High School in June and will begin at Carlton College in Minnesota in September.
His parents now start in a new place, too. Kurt works at an architecture firm in Moscow.
“We were really hoping to find this job,” Lipe said of wanting to return to the Palouse.
This is her first foray into a principal job.
“I'm at that stage in my career to help all kids. ... I really want to serve the whole school,” Lipe said. “Schools are a community in and of themselves. The flow of the school year ... I really want to be involved in helping to create that community.”
Coming from West Valley, she noted the smaller school sizes in Colfax.
“In the bigger districts, it loses the human level. You don't get to meet the parents, the grandparents, the families,” she said. “For the smaller ones, everyone in the building can be seen and valued. Education is a human business, a human endeavor. The academics happen in the context of relationships.”
While Lipe prepares for the approaching school year, maintenance staff is painting classrooms.
She is meeting with every teacher and staff member one-on-one.
Registration for new and returning students is Aug. 17.
“Our maintenance and grounds crews have done a stellar job getting the building ready,” Lipe said.
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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