MONROE - Karen Fowdy wasn't born or raised in the area, but the strong Swiss culture seemed to lure her here - and now, Monroe is home. As much as the land here has reminded her of her roots, she has also brought her own bit of culture and continues to help and share much of what she has to offer.
Fowdy was born in Denver, Colorado, where her grandfather had settled from Switzerland. Her family was very close to her grandparents and she feels heavily influenced by the Swiss culture and music.
At age 6, her family moved to Wyoming, a place to which she still feels a strong connection. She remembers as a child camping almost every weekend. She loved being in the mountains; she would take books along while her brother and father fished together, and she loved the beauty the landscape offered.
School was important to Fowdy and she enjoyed activities such as speech and debate, student government and pep club. She said her core group of friends was competitive academically and she found a niche in there.
After graduating high school in 1966, Fowdy said, she was anxious to leave. Her plan was to attain a scholarship somewhere with a strong foreign studies program. Her interest in German and Swiss culture was strong, and she had taken both German and Latin in high school. She corresponded with her father's cousin in Switzerland, and her interest was piqued - she ardently wanted to live abroad.
She earned a scholarship to Colorado Women's College in Denver. It has now been absorbed by the University of Denver, but at the time, it was a strong liberal arts college. She studied political science and in her junior year, she lived her dream by studying abroad in Vienna, Austria, where the college had a branch campus.
"It was such a strong learning experience," she said, noting that she only had four subjects there but they were integrated. She smiles while sharing that her art classes were the museums of Vienna and her music classes were the operas.
"What I learned there that year stuck more than any other learning opportunity in my life," she said. "Being a Wyoming girl in Vienna was like a fairy tale."
Despite being a child of the Cold War, she said the barriers were down and she quickly made friends there.
"I realized even then how lucky I was," she said. "It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience."
She had fallen in love with the area, and by the time she left Vienna her German was strong. All she could think about was going back. She would spend the next year applying for scholarships, and eventually she was awarded a full ride to study in Germany. She was in Berlin in 1970 attending Freie Universitat.
She stayed there for two years. But when her time was up, she still wasn't ready to come home. To avoid it, she landed a job working for a German-American Charter Airlines as a bilingual secretary. She said it was interesting to be a part of the Berlin workforce, and she loved having the best of both worlds.
It wasn't long before Fowdy met her husband. He had served in the Army, came back a year before her, and they bumped into each other back in the U.S. After three years in Berlin, she came home to Denver in the summer of 1973.
Fowdy needed to regroup and considered law school. Instead she finished her master's degree in German literature and was offered a teaching assistant job to teach German at Denver's satellite campus.
"Through that regiment, I knew I was just meant to be a teacher," she said. "I had a lot of adult and alternative students, and it was so fulfilling to work with them."
She received a contract to stay on and teach, but that year the state legislature froze all new hires. Fowdy was recently married, and she and her husband Mike were eager to be out of the city. They moved to a small town outside of Gunnison, Colorado, where their son Michael was born. They enjoyed hiking in the mountains with their new baby, cross country skiing and camping.
Fowdy had been out of teaching for 10 years - the family had grown and moved to Granby, Colorado, where they were caretakers of a guest house on the Colorado River right by Rocky Mountain National Park. She taught preschool part time, cared for the guest house and raised their three children.
When their youngest son turned 5, Fowdy and the family moved to Fort Collins, Colorado, and she went back to school to get her secondary teaching certificate. Both she and Mike intended to go back into the teaching field, but Mike had a change of heart and decided to stay in the construction field and eventually started his own business.
Fowdy said it was then that, with Mike's full support, her job took over. The couple decided to leave Colorado to find a home where housing was more affordable. Mike had family in Illinois and they looked in the area. Fowdy landed an interview in La Crosse. While in the area, she recalled that through her grandparents' records, she had heard about New Glarus and its claim of Little Switzerland. She borrowed a friend's car to check it out.
"I thought "my God it looks like Eastern Switzerland,'" she said. She had been homesick for Europe and pulled in to New Glarus High School, where the secretary told her that the German teacher the school shared with Monroe had resigned the day before.
Fowdy turned down a full-time job in La Crosse for a part-time job teaching at a time when she knew the plan was to phase out German language. She accepted the position before her family had even seen the area.
Her first week here Fowdy didn't hesitate to join the Monroe Swiss Singers.
"I thought, "I'm home, this is where I need to be,'" she said. She was singing with people she said she felt she knew through her grandparents' records.
And with the help of the Spanish and French program teachers, Fowdy worked to build the foreign language programs - and in the mid-1990s, a second German teacher was hired.
The German exchange program started almost immediately, too, and by 1989 Fowdy began taking about 20 students with her to partner with another school. In alternate years, the German students came to Monroe.
Fowdy said the stories are endless about how those exchange programs have impacted the lives of youths all over the world. The bonds, she said, continue to this day after getting people face to face to make connections and understand how others live. She's proud that the German exchange program is still so strong in Monroe.
"We're so fortunate to have landed here," she said. "I'm still constantly hearing from people that something I did or said played a role in their lives. Working with young people is the best job there is."
Fowdy served on the American Association of Teachers of German and was on a task force to research and fund materials that deal with diversity issues. She led a group of teachers, with two other colleagues, on a two-week seminar in Berlin on diversity issues in Berlin in 2009.
After teaching for 25 years in Monroe, she retired. She said she was ready for retirement and feels so fortunate to have traveled and gotten so many opportunities. She said she could have never done it all without her husband, Mike, watching things at home and encouraging her to go.
She isn't done being involved, either. She misses the classroom and periodically substitute teaches. She's still a member of the Swiss Singers and the Bel Canto Singers, and is a member of the Wisconsin Association for Language Teachers and still does some things with the local AFS group. She also volunteers at Turner Hall.
She's very active in consulting language teachers and leading curriculum coaching, workshops and seminars. She has worked all over the Midwest, from Kansas City to the Carolinas, working closely with the Department of Public Instruction, and is one of five authors of a curriculum guide for Wisconsin language instructors that revolutionized how language is taught.
"That's what I'm passionate about," she said. "Language is about communication. Keeping the world in your classroom and your classroom in your world."
Fowdy also earned the Distinguished Foreign Language Educator award given by the Wisconsin Association for Language Teachers, a meaningful honor for her that was given by her fellow teachers. She also helped start the National Honor Society at Monroe and helped integrate the importance of service to the program.
She said she couldn't easily let go of teaching and enjoys teaching teachers now.
"I believe so strongly on the importance of knowing about other cultures and how to communicate with each other."
She is also still passionate about traveling, and a favorite trip was with her husband to Berlin to celebrate their 40th anniversary. She also loves to visit family - her siblings and 96-year-old mother are in South Dakota - and she visits often.
"Our greatest joy is that our kids are all very close to each other even though we are physically scattered," she said.
Fowdy was born in Denver, Colorado, where her grandfather had settled from Switzerland. Her family was very close to her grandparents and she feels heavily influenced by the Swiss culture and music.
At age 6, her family moved to Wyoming, a place to which she still feels a strong connection. She remembers as a child camping almost every weekend. She loved being in the mountains; she would take books along while her brother and father fished together, and she loved the beauty the landscape offered.
School was important to Fowdy and she enjoyed activities such as speech and debate, student government and pep club. She said her core group of friends was competitive academically and she found a niche in there.
After graduating high school in 1966, Fowdy said, she was anxious to leave. Her plan was to attain a scholarship somewhere with a strong foreign studies program. Her interest in German and Swiss culture was strong, and she had taken both German and Latin in high school. She corresponded with her father's cousin in Switzerland, and her interest was piqued - she ardently wanted to live abroad.
She earned a scholarship to Colorado Women's College in Denver. It has now been absorbed by the University of Denver, but at the time, it was a strong liberal arts college. She studied political science and in her junior year, she lived her dream by studying abroad in Vienna, Austria, where the college had a branch campus.
"It was such a strong learning experience," she said, noting that she only had four subjects there but they were integrated. She smiles while sharing that her art classes were the museums of Vienna and her music classes were the operas.
"What I learned there that year stuck more than any other learning opportunity in my life," she said. "Being a Wyoming girl in Vienna was like a fairy tale."
Despite being a child of the Cold War, she said the barriers were down and she quickly made friends there.
"I realized even then how lucky I was," she said. "It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience."
She had fallen in love with the area, and by the time she left Vienna her German was strong. All she could think about was going back. She would spend the next year applying for scholarships, and eventually she was awarded a full ride to study in Germany. She was in Berlin in 1970 attending Freie Universitat.
She stayed there for two years. But when her time was up, she still wasn't ready to come home. To avoid it, she landed a job working for a German-American Charter Airlines as a bilingual secretary. She said it was interesting to be a part of the Berlin workforce, and she loved having the best of both worlds.
It wasn't long before Fowdy met her husband. He had served in the Army, came back a year before her, and they bumped into each other back in the U.S. After three years in Berlin, she came home to Denver in the summer of 1973.
Fowdy needed to regroup and considered law school. Instead she finished her master's degree in German literature and was offered a teaching assistant job to teach German at Denver's satellite campus.
"Through that regiment, I knew I was just meant to be a teacher," she said. "I had a lot of adult and alternative students, and it was so fulfilling to work with them."
She received a contract to stay on and teach, but that year the state legislature froze all new hires. Fowdy was recently married, and she and her husband Mike were eager to be out of the city. They moved to a small town outside of Gunnison, Colorado, where their son Michael was born. They enjoyed hiking in the mountains with their new baby, cross country skiing and camping.
Fowdy had been out of teaching for 10 years - the family had grown and moved to Granby, Colorado, where they were caretakers of a guest house on the Colorado River right by Rocky Mountain National Park. She taught preschool part time, cared for the guest house and raised their three children.
When their youngest son turned 5, Fowdy and the family moved to Fort Collins, Colorado, and she went back to school to get her secondary teaching certificate. Both she and Mike intended to go back into the teaching field, but Mike had a change of heart and decided to stay in the construction field and eventually started his own business.
Fowdy said it was then that, with Mike's full support, her job took over. The couple decided to leave Colorado to find a home where housing was more affordable. Mike had family in Illinois and they looked in the area. Fowdy landed an interview in La Crosse. While in the area, she recalled that through her grandparents' records, she had heard about New Glarus and its claim of Little Switzerland. She borrowed a friend's car to check it out.
"I thought "my God it looks like Eastern Switzerland,'" she said. She had been homesick for Europe and pulled in to New Glarus High School, where the secretary told her that the German teacher the school shared with Monroe had resigned the day before.
Fowdy turned down a full-time job in La Crosse for a part-time job teaching at a time when she knew the plan was to phase out German language. She accepted the position before her family had even seen the area.
Her first week here Fowdy didn't hesitate to join the Monroe Swiss Singers.
"I thought, "I'm home, this is where I need to be,'" she said. She was singing with people she said she felt she knew through her grandparents' records.
And with the help of the Spanish and French program teachers, Fowdy worked to build the foreign language programs - and in the mid-1990s, a second German teacher was hired.
The German exchange program started almost immediately, too, and by 1989 Fowdy began taking about 20 students with her to partner with another school. In alternate years, the German students came to Monroe.
Fowdy said the stories are endless about how those exchange programs have impacted the lives of youths all over the world. The bonds, she said, continue to this day after getting people face to face to make connections and understand how others live. She's proud that the German exchange program is still so strong in Monroe.
"We're so fortunate to have landed here," she said. "I'm still constantly hearing from people that something I did or said played a role in their lives. Working with young people is the best job there is."
Fowdy served on the American Association of Teachers of German and was on a task force to research and fund materials that deal with diversity issues. She led a group of teachers, with two other colleagues, on a two-week seminar in Berlin on diversity issues in Berlin in 2009.
After teaching for 25 years in Monroe, she retired. She said she was ready for retirement and feels so fortunate to have traveled and gotten so many opportunities. She said she could have never done it all without her husband, Mike, watching things at home and encouraging her to go.
She isn't done being involved, either. She misses the classroom and periodically substitute teaches. She's still a member of the Swiss Singers and the Bel Canto Singers, and is a member of the Wisconsin Association for Language Teachers and still does some things with the local AFS group. She also volunteers at Turner Hall.
She's very active in consulting language teachers and leading curriculum coaching, workshops and seminars. She has worked all over the Midwest, from Kansas City to the Carolinas, working closely with the Department of Public Instruction, and is one of five authors of a curriculum guide for Wisconsin language instructors that revolutionized how language is taught.
"That's what I'm passionate about," she said. "Language is about communication. Keeping the world in your classroom and your classroom in your world."
Fowdy also earned the Distinguished Foreign Language Educator award given by the Wisconsin Association for Language Teachers, a meaningful honor for her that was given by her fellow teachers. She also helped start the National Honor Society at Monroe and helped integrate the importance of service to the program.
She said she couldn't easily let go of teaching and enjoys teaching teachers now.
"I believe so strongly on the importance of knowing about other cultures and how to communicate with each other."
She is also still passionate about traveling, and a favorite trip was with her husband to Berlin to celebrate their 40th anniversary. She also loves to visit family - her siblings and 96-year-old mother are in South Dakota - and she visits often.
"Our greatest joy is that our kids are all very close to each other even though we are physically scattered," she said.