SV veteran teachers retire in surprise celebration

It was so much of a surprise that St. Vincent religion teacher Tom Prost forgot to comb his hair for the occasion. St. Vincent held a special surprise retirement celebration for three of its more veteran presences in and around the school Friday at the St. Vincent football field.
Prost, along with Tammy Brown and Terry Wengert, who have a combined 114 years of teaching experience, are moving on to their next chapters in life and retiring at the end of the school year.
Prost will retire from teaching at the St. Vincent junior/senior high after 43 years of service.
Prost spent nine years at St. Vincent High School before transferring to the St. Vincent Seminary in Cape Girardeau as a sophomore in high school, where he studied during his high school years and college years, but decided that priesthood was not his vocation. He finished his teaching degree at Southeast Missouri State University and soon began teaching at St. Vincent where he remained ever since.
“It has been a great time here at St. Vincent, for many of the students here today, teaching your parents,” Prost said. “What a town, what a school, and what a parish. I have loved it through the years.”
Prost has been able to teach through two of his loves in life —golf and music— and incorporate them in the classroom. Prost coached the golf team to a first place finish at the state tournament in 1998. That victory was most important to him because his son Ryan was part of the squad.
It wouldn’t have been a celebration of Prost without music, so he led the student body in a rendition of “Old Church Choir.”
The usually outspoken teacher was lost for words by the end of the ceremony.

“Wow, this is just awesome,” he said.
Brown will retire from St. Vincent Elementary after 42 years. She has been an Indian at heart, graduating from St. Vincent in 1974. After receiving a lifetime teaching certificate from Southeast Missouri State, she returned to St. Vincent to teach first grade for more than four decades. Her favorite class was her son’s first grade class, back in 1997 because she has stayed closest to many of those students.
Brown isn’t too sure what she will do in retirement, but will wait to see what life holds.
“They say that your friends are your family that you get to pick,” Brown said. “I would say that I’ve had some pretty good friends for a long time. If you keep Jesus as your guide, He will show you the way. If you want to help clean out a school room, I know where you may be able to find a job.”
Wengert much like Prost, had no idea about the celebration.
“You got me,” she said. “I had no idea where we were going.”
Wengert, a junior high school English teacher, will retire after 29 years of service. She will enjoy traveling and visiting extended family in Iowa, and all of which was able to attend the ceremony.
“It’s been a great time and a joy to teach all of you,” Wengert said. “I will dearly miss each and every one of you.”