Music teacher leaves joyous career

Leslie Noem is trading in a life of teaching for a new, more relaxed life.

After 28 years of teaching for Carbon County School District No. 2, Noem is leaving Wyoming for a new life with her new husband in Kuster, Neb., to be a full-time housewife and grandmother.

“It is bittersweet,” Neom said. “I’m going to miss my students and staff at SES (Saratoga Elementary School), but I am going to move on with my new life, and I am excited from that.”

Noem first moved to Wyoming in 1979, and began to substitute teach in 1982. She later became a part-time music teacher.

“They needed a part-time music instructor, so I had that job for a while,” Neom said.

She later became the fulltime music instructor for SES and taught general music and sixth-grade bands.

Noem will be missed by many of her colleagues, said SES teacher Sherry MacKay.

“I think it would certainly be a loss to our students,” MacKay said. “The experience of the kids being on stage and performing is one of those skills they can always come back to.”

Mackay said Noem’s departure from Saratoga is also a loss to the community.

“The programs that she does bring the community together,” MacKay said. “We will miss her, but everyone is 100 percent behind her. She is a terrific lady. She is courageous and has it together.”

For Noem, the teaching experience has been dynamic.

“It was a challenge. It was joyous. But mostly it was rewarding,” she said.

One of Noem’s most joyous aspects of teaching was getting to know her students, she said.

“I have a bond with those kids,” Noem said. “I have had a lot of them for five or six years. You get to know kids really well. I still have kids that have graduated that still stop by and visit with me.

Noem taught music and band at the Saratoga Middle/High School until 2008.

Many of her students honored Noem and Lori Nelson, a SES grade-school teacher, for their years of teaching at the school.

Although Noem said she will miss teaching, she is looking forward to spending time with children in her own family.

Noem plans on relaxing and spending more time with her 12 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.