By Cathy Kozlowicz
Contributor
Even a week before lifelong Elkhorn resident and West Side fifth grade teacher, Kelly (Amidon) Butzen, 39, died of breast cancer on Oct. 9, she told her principal, Sara Stone, “I will be back.”
Butzen had completed two rounds of radiation for her cancer, which was in her brain, the maximum amount allowed. Her body was too weak for more chemotherapy. She was off the clinical trial at the university hospital in Madison-Carbone Cancer Center as she was not making progress.
The cancer was not going away.
And she was preparing to go back to teach.
“She taught until she could not teach anymore,” Stone said.
Diagnosed with stage four metastatic inflammatory breast cancer in October 2010, she was still hoping for a cure; a cure would have given her the opportunity to know each student of her new fifth grade class. She was hoping to resume teaching January 2014.
“Her biggest regret was not meeting her (new) class,” Connie Amann, West Side teacher who taught with Butzen for 16 years, said. “She wanted to stop by in September so she can meet her new students.”
She taught with this late stage cancer, which was also in her brain until January 2013. She used a cane, a walker and in her last teaching days, a wheelchair. Because of some broken vertebrae in her spine, she was unable to lift her head. Butzen taught with her head resting on her shoulder.
She parked right next to her classroom as she was not able to walk to her room from the main entrance.
Yet, she still did bus duty every other day even in December.
Amann suspects she suffered headaches because the cancer was in her brain. “I am guessing that as she never complained,” Amann said. “Not ever.”
She taught without taking pain medication as that would have made her tired and not able to teach effectively.
For Kelly being an effective teacher was connecting with each student.
“She got to know each of us, each of our talents. We all thought we were special,” said Hannah Koss, 12, who had Butzen last year in fifth grade. “She let us be ourselves.”
Koss remembers the first day of Butzen’s class. Butzen had her students fill out a questionnaire to find out their learning style. Through this, Koss learned she was a visual learner. This helped Koss understand how to do math better, a subject she always struggled. She learned that writing all her answers and showing her work out was effective so she can see it all in front of her. Now, a sixth grader, Koss can say she is doing well in math.
Even when her mobility was limited, Butzen’s class was still an active, interactive class.
“She was able to maneuver her wheelchair so she was able to work her way around her class,” Amann said.
When Butzen needed an errand done or needed to get something to another class, her students helped her do this.
“In class, we were always moving around,” Koss said.
If Butzen was too tired to change something on the smartboard, she would ask one of her students to help her.
“We all would volunteer to help her,” Koss emphasized.
Principal Stone, felt her teaching was still the same even in her last days of teaching.
If Stone closed her eyes, just for an example, so she did not see Butzen’s physical state, she admitted that nothing was different about her teaching.
“She was still Kelly,” Stone said.
And her sense of humor was still there.
Butzen, who also attended West Side as a student, joked often with Janice Bice, music teacher who taught Butzen. Bice, who taught for 37 years, enjoyed the friendly banter they shared, especially during Butzen’s last semester, when Butzen may have, just once in a while referenced Bice as being “old.” Maybe, just maybe, she called her “old teacher.”
“I would laugh and say, ‘You watch that,’” Bice recalled.
Butzen once asked Bice to go get her cane.
“Do you need to use it?” Bice asked thinking Butzen needed help going somewhere. “Well no. It is for you,” Butzen joked.
However she was feeling, Butzen had the tendency to direct the conversation towards everyone else, not herself.
“It was always how are you doing,” Bice said. “Kelly was the perfect everything.”
Ann White, a West Side kindergarten teacher knew Butzen when Butzen, herself, was a student at West Side. Instead of going home each night, Butzen would go to White’s classroom two to three days a week to volunteer in her classroom.
“She would help with bulletin boards and help get projects done when she was in fourth or fifth grade,” White said. “She said she knew in second grade, she wanted to be a teacher.”
Butzen, since then has taught White’s kids, Derek (25), Drew (23) and Allison (21).
“Even the last few weeks, the first thing she asked was how my kids are doing,” White said.
In January 2013, Butzen physically could not finish the year, but worked with s substitute to ensure certain competencies got taught. She would send emails to the class updating everyone and of course, asking how everyone was doing.
On June 7, the “Moving On” day, a school tradition to celebrate the fifth graders and wish them luck as they left for middle school, Butzen came back to wish her students luck next year.
“Everyone was lined up, students, parents, everyone. Everyone just waited in line to have a conversation with Kelly,” Stone said.
“It was the longest, longest line,” Koss recalled.
With having this late stage cancer Butzen inspired her last class, who knew she what she was facing. She told her class to “always, always fight.”
Koss, who is a 6th grader student at the middle school will always abide by the words, “Never Give Up.” When she would have to run “ladders”, a rigorous running drill, at basketball practice, she often got tired and wanted to stop running. She did not.
“Because she taught me to never give up. She (Butzen) did not give up, so I keep going,” Koss said. “She would tell us to keep fighting even when you don’t want to. What I learned from her was to never, ever give up.”
Not once, not ever.
