Ann Trowbridge Tollefson

BA 1963, MA 1969, French		Teaching has been Ann Tollefson's life work since earning her UW degrees. She was named the 1982 Wyoming Foreign Language Teacher of the Year and the 1983 Wyoming Teacher of the Year. In 1987, she was appointed a Distinguished Teacher in the Presidential Scholars program and was recognized by President Reagan at a White House ceremony. After training as a French teacher at UW, she taught French language and culture at the University and in secondary schools in Laramie and Casper. In Casper she rose to department head, then coordinator for all the district's foreign language programs. She currently holds a special appointment as director of extramural grant projects for Natrona County. In the last five years, she has generated $725,000 in federal grants for her district. Tollefson's memories of UW center on her teachers, "who were the very soul of the college." She recalls, "It was a humane environment in which young minds could be challenged and nurtured, given respect as individuals with worth and dignity rather than simply bodies in huge impersonal classes. They cajoled, they challenged, they praised, they failed those who deserved to be failed, but they were rarely indifferent. The education they provided their students was of the highest standards." She remembers in particular professors Sam Knight, Wilson Walthall, Glyn Thomas, and Adolph Dickman, "whose horror at my being a porn-porn girl was only surpassed by his pique at my lack of enthusiasm for irregular French verbs." She also recalls Madame Henriette Dickman, who became "a loving and well-loved part of my life as she unselfishly gave of herself to those of us who were lucky enough to have known her."