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The Man Under the Hat

This summer at Gibraltar School, as classrooms are cleaned, last year’s paperwork is completed, and faculty members prepare for September, the school is phasing out some of its old equipment. Among the items on the list are overhead projectors, some of which have the names of the teachers who used them taped on their sides. Perhaps the most used of all the overheads, the one with the most frequently changed bulb, the one that was once the centerpiece of a retirement party, still carries a sticker reading, “Blahnik.” As it sits quietly under a blanket of dust, waiting for its life to finally come to an end, the man whose name it bears lives on, standing on an old porch on Sunday and Monday evenings. Doug Blahnik, who retired from Gibraltar in 2003 after teaching elementary school for 40 years, nurtures his love of history today as a docent and activity director at Fish Creek’s Historic Noble House.

Doug Blahnik looks out over the village of Fish Creek from the porch of the Noble House.

Blahnik grew up on a dairy farm with his parents and two sisters, about three miles northwest of Algoma. He worked on the farm from an early age, and when their father started a feed mill, he helped out there as well.

“I’d work all day and he’d give me five dollars,” Blahnik recalls, his laid-back drawl always hiding a chuckle. “He’d hold up his hand and say, ‘You got one dollar to put gas in the car. You got one dollar for refreshments – drinks and something to eat. And remember, you got three dollars you can save.’ So I guess maybe growing up on a farm and helping my dad and things like that, I learned to value money.”

The former teacher attributes his skill working with people to the time he spent working as a teenager in the late 1950s. When he was a junior in high school, Blahnik got a job working at the Anderson Hotel in Ephraim. He earned one dollar per hour, had his laundry done, and was fed three meals a day and given a place to stay. After graduating from high school in 1961, Blahnik attended Door-Kewaunee Teachers College, using the money he had earned in Ephraim to pay his tuition. Two years later, while finishing his degree in night and summer classes at UW-Oshkosh, he started his teaching career at Liberty Grove School in Door County.

“The students were like nine, ten years old; I was 20 years old…I couldn’t even buy a new car unless my dad signed for it,” Blahnik says. The school had two rooms, and Blahnik taught 29 third and fourth grade students. He taught the two grades separately, going through each subject first with the third graders, then with the fourth graders, for 15 minutes each.

“Those little rural schools had a different quality to them,” he remembers. “They were small, we had a library of maybe 500 books, or maybe a little over, in each room, and within two years those kids would read all the books…They say it was the good old days; I guess it was partly good old days but you have to move forward.”

Blahnik did exactly that as the first few years of his teaching career passed. When all of the smaller school systems of northern Door County combined to become Gibraltar Area Schools, he began teaching fifth grade at Gibraltar. Blahnik loved history ever since he was inspired by his demanding high school history teacher, and he taught social studies all afternoon. He was joined by his wife, B.J., who taught art from 1972 to 2001.

“When I first started we used blackboards, and I’d come in the morning and the first thing was…you’d write all your assignments on the blackboard, and the students would copy down all those things that you wrote when they came,” he recalls. But things changed, and Blahnik moved on from the blackboard to a new method of teaching.

“The new technology for a while was the overhead projector, so I was King of the Projector,” he says. “But it was a good way, because you could always see what the students’ reactions were, and you’d have [the lesson] behind you.”

Mr. Blahnik was known for his use of the overhead until his retirement, but regardless of the methods he used, he always tried to incorporate his love of history, and the local history of Door County, into his classes. He took his students on community field trips, assigned them family history projects, and ended every year with a reenactment of the Civil War. He sometimes wore historical costumes to school, and loved it when his students had to write biographies of famous Americans, and then all the students and their teacher would dress up as the people they wrote about and have a party.

In 2000, Blahnik furthered his enthusiasm for acting and started working at the Noble House as a docent Wednesday through Sunday. Back then, the museum wasn’t nearly as popular as it is today, and Blahnik has played a huge part in its growth.

“When I started this job, everybody just wore plain clothes,” he recalls. “I thought, ‘There aren’t very many people coming into this nice house,’ so, all I did was go down to Goodwill, got some clothes…found some hats, and it works amazingly to get people’s attention.”

As the Noble House grew, the free time in Blahnik’s schedule shrunk, and in 2003 he retired from teaching. His last class threw a colossal retirement party for him, with a cake in the shape of an overhead projector. They also presented him with a sculpture of their teacher writing on the board, which Blahnik says is “probably something I’ll treasure because they got it down to the cowboy boots I used to wear.” His decision to retire was simple. “I thought 40 years was pretty good…I felt successful.”

Blahnik said he didn’t consider stepping back from the Noble House as well.

“It was never a question, because I have a great interest in American history, and American history involves local history… I feel sometimes that it’s necessary for me to give back to this community.”

Blahnik has certainly done that. Though he now spends less time as a docent, he says that he sometimes doesn’t feel retired because of all the hours he spends working at the Noble House.

“My job description takes up a whole page,” he says. As the activities director, Blahnik organizes historical programs for visitors, writes press releases, and gathers information for the Gibraltar Historical Association newsletter. Blahnik has also performed with the Isadoora Theater Company, and every year puts on another costume as he plays a captain from the Christmas Tree Ship at events in Peninsula State Park. He even donated over 45 hours of his time at Fish Creek’s recent Heritage Days. Blahnik explains his dedication very simply:  “I want the community to understand that their heritage is very important.”

On the wall of Mr. Blahnik’s fifth grade classroom hung a sign that read, “Learn from the Past, Live in the Present, and Plan for the Future.” This philosophy in many ways has defined Blahnik’s life, both as a teacher and a historian.

“We learn from the past, and we’re always going to,” he says. As for the present? “I tried to be different, and even today people think I’m a little different. I’m not eccentric, I’m myself, but I’m trying to get people to notice things and do things and become involved.” Through his consistent, dedicated efforts over the years, there is no doubt Doug Blahnik is succeeding.