Beloved Deer Park teacher who started as bus driver retiring four decades later

Forty-one years later, Kylene Davis still remembers her first school bus ride. She was a 5-year-old kindergartner who waited nervously for the bus to pick her up. When the doors opened, she was “greeted by a friendly face.”

That friendly face belonged to Dan Huffman, a first-year bus driver for the Deer Park School District. Huffman, a farm kid who graduated from Deer Park High School in 1972 was putting himself through college at Whitworth University. As a bus driver in 1976 he made $3,700 a year.

Four decades later, Huffman is retiring as a high school teacher. Over the years, he’s worked in every building in the district, and he’s helped build a state-of-the-art video and sound production facility.

And, he still knows Davis.

“You know what? There are a lot of people who go to work every day, and they do their job and they collect a paycheck,” Davis said. “Dan Huffman has done more than just go to his job and collect a paycheck. Dan has buy-in.”

Dicki Thomas, the lead secretary for Deer Park High School, joked, “We want him to leave his brain.

“He is just so well-respected, and he just knows everything,” she said.

Before Huffman became a teacher, he drove school buses for five years. He’d start work at 6 a.m., drop off high school students, go to class during the day and then go drive his evening routes.

He then worked as an elementary school teacher until 1991, at which point he moved to the middle school. He started teaching high school in 2006.

“I like to say I’ve taught in every building in the district,” Huffman said, adding, “And I’ve always thought that was an advantage and a cool thing to know that many people and to see how things work.”

The breadth of his knowledge and experience is on full display at his Deer Park High School classroom one Thursday in March. State-of-the-art computers, video equipment and sound-recording equipment have allowed Huffman to create a video production class that puts out two news shows a week. He also does sound for choir and music concerts, as well as film and broadcast sporting events.

Dan Birdsell, the former vocational director at the district, retired in 1991. But Thursday morning, he’s sitting in Huffman’s classroom helping with odd jobs. Birdsell first met Huffman years ago.

“The first time we ever met we were in the milking parlor of his dad’s farm,” Birdsell said.

That farm, about 3 miles from Deer Park High School, is where Huffman grew up and it has greatly influenced his career.

“Growing up on a farm really set the stage for a lot of this,” Huffman said. “On a farm, if something breaks down you’re going to fix it.”

Throughout his career, Huffman has embraced and integrated technology into his teaching. He remembers getting the first Apple IIe computer in his classroom. It’s still on display in his classroom today.

“Trouble shooting is troubl shooting,” Huffman said. “And that’s really my take away from growing up on a farm. Figure out how it works, figure out what’s happening when it doesn’t work and come up with a plan to get it back in the saddle.”

He remembers thinking sometime in the 1980s, “Man, teaching is getting tough.” He decided then to figure out ways that technology could assist teachers.

“It’s one thing to have technology, it’s another thing to know what to do with it to make it enhance what you’re doing in the classroom.”

Another benefit of his wide-ranging career is that he knows how hard others’ jobs can be. For instance, he said he can appreciate the work kindergarten teachers do, because he’s worked alongside them. He also knows, and appreciates, the role bus drivers play.

“They are the people who interface with our kids first, and last,” Huffman said. “They’ve got this moving classroom. They have a lot going on.”

He pulled double duty for years, teaching music while teaching video production. But in preparation for his retirement, he’s scaled back a bit, only teaching video production.

Deer Park High School Principal Joe Feist said Huffman is “irreplaceable.”

“I call him the renaissance Dan,” he said, adding later, “The thing that really upsets me about Dan is he hasn’t gained a pound since sixth grade.”

Huffman, for his part, credits the district for making much of his work possible.

“I’ve been really pleased in this district as far as how we’ve moved through with our technology,” he said. “With some of the innovative things we do, I would put us up against just about anybody.”