You might know Mr. Fry as our high school English teacher, or from the fantastic yearbooks he has advised over the years, but you might not know his history and what got him started here in Potosi.
Mr. Fry grew up in Richland Center, WI, all the way up until he graduated high school. He always had a strong passion for soccer and school. He really enjoyed reading and writing as a kid, so he thought that maybe he could combine these hobbies together and become a sports writer when he grew up. However, that is not how things turned out when he attended college at Viterbo University in La Crosse, WI.
Fry went to college to become an English major and to continue to play soccer. He really enjoyed the analysis of how ideas fit together in literature, but he didnt know for sure what he wanted to do with it. After his first year at college, he decided he would go back home to be a counselor at a summer camp. It was here that he figured out how much he enjoyed helping younger people understand things and put pieces together to process their own thinking.
Mr.Fry earned his teaching degree from Viterbo, then decided to set sail to become a teacher. He taught at a few different places before he started teaching at Wittenberg-Birnamwood High School, east of Wausau, WI. He taught there for five years, until after his first daughter was born. Once his daughter turned one, he and his wife thought it was time to settle down and live closer to their families. They were thinking somewhere in Southwest Wisconsin, but didn’t know where exactly. Fry was offered for a few different job interviews, and it was at one of these interviews that they decided to refer him to another school with an opening for an English teacher, which ended up being Potosi. Potosi has been very fortunate for the last five years. This will be his sixth year teaching here in Potosi, and he has had a great impact on our school. He has had the opportunities to build his own curriculum over the years, developing his own ideas and materials to go with those ideas and align them with the teaching standards. He is always looking for ways to improve this curriculum, something he has been working on for thirteen years now. He is always changing and tweaking the curriculum he teaches for the better of the students, and that is exactly what makes him a great teacher.
Mr. Fry has been teaching here in Potosi, he has been able to help with many activities other than just teaching his high school English classes, such as being the yearbook advisor, the Students Against Destructive Decisions advisor, forensics advisor, and he even directed the plays here up until 2020.
I asked our principal, Mr.Uppena, about the importance of having Fry here in our district, and he said this: “he does a good job teaching and he seems to know his stuff. I’m very appreciative of the yearbook work he helps out with as well as advising the SADD club.”