Jordan Valley School for students with severe, multiple disabilities — the school with an uncanny knack for attracting community volunteers and a long-standing staff, plus getting attention from national researchers, students from all over the world and even famous baseball slugger Mark McGwire — is losing its front man.

John Gardner, principal of the Midvale school for the past 29 years, whom former assistant principal Wendy Bills calls "an icon for special education," is retiring this month.

He plans to ride off into the sunset on an ATV — he teaches riding classes in his spare time — spend time with family, and maybe serve an LDS Church mission with his wife, Mary Lou, a Jordan Valley School bus driver.

Colleagues say he'll be greatly missed.

"John is the best thing that ever happened to disabled kids in Jordan School district," said Jenni Eyre, Jordan Valley physical education teacher of 18 years. "He was right in that generation, that era, where they were starting to say, 'Hey, you've got to educate these kids in the public school system.'

He got in and helped people understand what that meant: It wasn't just baby-sitting, it was education for these kids. This is what we needed."

Rita Bouillon, Jordan Valley assistant principal, will take Gardner's place in January. She has worked with him 13 years, first as a speech and language therapist, and hopes to continue many of his traditions.

You could say Gardner found his life's work by necessity.

Studying to become an elementary school teacher, the young father of three needed a home loan and a job. But the first month's paycheck from the school system fell short of what he made in just two weeks at his old Union Pacific job.

So he quit — sort of.

Still a University of Utah student, Gardner secured a special education fellowship that paid tuition, books, and more money than he was making teaching elementary school.

He decided he'd earn a master's degree, then return to elementary education.

That is, until he took a job as a student teacher at the old Jordan Valley School.

"I just fell in love with the kids," Gardner said. "If you work with them long enough, you're going to see that in these damaged little bodies, there's a real person in there . . . with a real spirit. That's where you get hooked."

Gardner's career took off, first in Heber, where he was special education director for 10 area school districts. A year later, he took a principalship at South Valley Vocational School for students with disabilities. Four years later, his realized his goal: leading Jordan Valley.

"Working here is the best-kept secret in education," said Gardner, 61, a former lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve's 328th General Hospital. "It's the best place to work."