Fire strikes twice for couple in education

Longtime Wasatch Junior High teacher Bill Shaw felt a pang of loss — and perhaps a little deja vu — as he watched on TV as his school went up in flames Monday.

It was deja vu because his wife, Kerri Lynn Shaw, is the lead secretary at Sandy Elementary, which burned last November and has been under repair since that fire.

"We've never had problems with fire in our lives. Funny how the coincidence comes," said the shop and math teacher, who just closed the book on a 35-year career spent entirely at Wasatch. "When I retired, I guess the school wanted to retire, too."

The East Bench school, praised for strong academic programs and a tight-knit community, was gutted in a six-alarm fire investigators attribute to a computer server. Damage estimates are under way.

The shop where Bill Shaw spent most of his working years was relatively unscathed. But the same can't be said for his potential future there.

"When I left, the kids said, 'Oh, come on back just one more year.' Now, they're going to be dispersed all over the place, I guess," said Bill Shaw, who works summers as a Granite School District painter. "I also told the teachers, when the wintertime comes . . . it would be fun to go back and substitute for the kids. Now, that part of my life, that situation, is gone. I will never be able to go back and be in a classroom with them again, and that's sad."

Kerri Lynn Shaw expresses her sympathy.

"When I saw the fire . . . I knew the small amount of fire I'd seen at Sandy that took us out of school a year, and I couldn't believe it," she said. "Two different fires, but the devastation is the same."

Kerri Lynn Shaw remembers the Sandy fire as being mostly smoky. But renovations and repairs tallied $5.5 million at the school, expected to reopen next academic year. Some 600 students, their teachers and principal were shuffled off to six neighboring schools during repairs.

Still, school never stopped. The first days were spent "trying to calm everyone down and reassure them," Kerri Lynn Shaw recalls. Other schools gave displaced teachers educational supplies until they were allowed to salvage their own. It wasn't easy to keep the sprawled school humming and records maintained. Sometimes, she and secretaries from the other schools would meet in halfway locations to trade boxes of information.

But the community survived, and the children bounced back quickly, Kerri Lynn Shaw said.

The Shaws know the Wasatch community, too, will cope with its loss.

"Make the best of the situation you've got and you will do fine," Bill Shaw said. "Keep the chin up."

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E-mail: jtcook@desnews.com