Not A Fair-Weather Friend

Frank Bertino arrived in Wallace when wallets bulged in townspeople’s pockets and schools sparkled with year-round newness.

It was 1978. Profits from silver and lead mines built playgrounds, paved streets, straightened teeth. Schools offered training programs for students heading into mine work.

It was a good time to sign on as the Wallace School District’s superintendent. After one meeting with the school board, Frank decided to take the job.

He didn’t know Shoshone County’s prosperity would plummet in three years as drastically as the nation’s had after the 1929 stock market crash.

He had no idea that within 20 years his district’s enrollment would drop from 1,600 students to 781 and its market value would plunge from $688 million to $128 million.

But he says now, on the eve of his retirement as superintendent, that knowing the future wouldn’t have changed his mind.

“The first three years were very rewarding,” he says. “We built something solid. I felt I could stay until the end of my career. I like the community, the people.”

He smiles but admits the years took their toll. At 59, his hair is gray and his glasses thick. Worry has deepened his eyes. The economic and emotional hardships of the 1980s still color his thoughts.

“There were things that were very distasteful,” he says.

“Cutting jobs was my least favorite thing to do. I’m sure those people don’t hold me responsible for the economic situation, but they blame me for my choices.”

Frank had no reason to expect disaster in 1978. Good times carried with them positive attitudes and big ideas. Teachers eagerly carried out his ambitious plan to coordinate curriculum from kindergarten through the 12th grade.

“We knew mine closures could happen, but we assumed if they happened they would be for a short time,” Frank says.

The closure of Bunker Hill Mining Co.’s massive operations in 1981 prompted Shoshone County school officials to seek help from Montana school officials whose district had suffered a similar fate the year before.

“Everything they told us would happen did,” Frank says. “I had no idea it would be so bad.”

As mines closed, the tax burden shifted to area residents, most of whom had lost their jobs. People moved. School enrollments, on which state funding is based, plunged like an elevator off its cable.

Frank’s days changed from designing his district’s bright future to searching for ways to survive.

“Sometimes it was dreadful reading the paper, checking the lead and silver prices,” he said.

Fat notebooks strain the bookshelves in his office, evidence of years of creative problem-solving and determined head-scratching.

They contain dissections and analyses of every feature of Frank’s district, research on consolidating Shoshone County’s three school districts, ways to combine programs with other districts and sources of money beyond local taxpayers.

Frank and the other superintendents in his county worked well together. The three men established cooperative vocational education, special education and work-force training programs that have become national models.

They also understood the strain each was under.

“Frank and I used to talk when things got tense,” says Larry Curry, who retired last year as superintendent of the Kellogg School District. “We’d say, ‘Let’s go check the boundaries.’ That was our way to get out of the office and talk. We could lean on each other.”

Still, the stress of laying off friends - 25 in 20 years - closing schools and cutting programs as the district shrunk finally unraveled Frank’s marriage and sent him to counseling. He admits it gruffly.

College didn’t prepare him for such an ordeal, so now he regularly shares his experiences with graduate students.

By the ‘90s, the worst was over. Enrollment drops slowed. Resources stayed tight. Recovery wasn’t noticeable, but Frank was used to living on a shoestring and felt some relief from the daily scramble.

“I don’t think anyone in the state is stronger with finances and budgets than Frank,” Larry says.

Frank invited the community to help direct his district’s curriculum. With that project up and running and an atmosphere of stability, Frank decided to retire.

He’ll be 60 next month and wants to work as a computer networking consultant.

“There were positive moments,” he says, thinking back over his 20 years as superintendent. “When we dealt with challenges successfully, that was rewarding. The first three years … they were rewarding.”