A Life Long Learner

Born in Portland, Michelle was not a Michael. Michelle Dawkins' father was looking to have a son, and out of the 14 babies born that day at Good Samaritan, she was the only girl. :) Michelle and her family lived in Portland until her junior year of high school. After moving to Gresham, she transferred from David Douglas to Sam Barlow High School. Just after the move, her parents divorced. For college, Michelle went to Mt. Hood Community College for two years and then transferred to Western Oregon University and finished with a degree in teaching. Michelle has always been a hard worker, putting in 30 plus hours per week all four years of college. During her freshman and sophomore year of college, Michelle worked at TJ Athletics in Gresham. There she met an "older man" (9 years her senior) who was her co-worker, and they started dating. Michelle and Chris Dawkins married in July 1983, just after she graduated from college. Both continued working at TJ Athletics until the store eventually went bankrupt. Chris then got his stock broker's license and went to work as a financial planner. Michelle went to work at Kaiser Permanente full-time where she helped start the pharmacy technician program. Her heart was always in teaching, but there was not a position available at the time. After 7 years with Kaiser, Michelle decided to go back to teaching, working first as a substitute teacher in the Corbett and Reynolds District. Chris was now working for Weyerhauser. Chris and Michelle started a family and had two children. Stephanie was born in 1985 and Joe was born in 1988. Frank Kosderka became the principal at the Corbett Grade School in 1994 so Michelle was asked to take over his second grade classroom. She has been teaching ever since in the grade school. Michelle considers herself to be a life long learner and wants her students to be as well. She has seen many changes over the years and has grown and learned along the way. One thing she most appreciates is that no matter what grade level(s) she is teaching, she has always had numerous parents on board to help out in the classroom. Michelle and Chris not only raised both Stephanie and Joe in the Corbett Schools, but in the community as well. They moved to Corbett in 1983, first renting a single wide trailer. Being very athletic, they recently purchased a condo on Mt. Hood in addition to their Corbett home, and are up skiing, snowshoeing and hiking every weekend!