Sheridan’s Schatz Honored by AARP As Retired Educator of The Year

Wayne Schatz  is well known in AARP Wyoming circles as a long-time member of the organization’s Executive Council. Thursday night, he was honored for his work on behalf of educators during his retirement at AARP Wyoming’s Volunteer Recognition Dinner in Casper.

An advocate in and out of the classroom, Schatz was a leader and officer of the Sheridan Central Education Association for 35 years. He also acted as the state treasurer for the Wyoming Education Association, and was a school board trustee for Sheridan County School District 2. Outside of school, Schatz was a boy scout leader and scoutmaster for 20 years, performed in the Sheridan Civic Theatre Guild.

Schatz was born in Cody and raised on a cattle ranch 20 miles down the Greybull River from Meeteetse as the oldest of five children. He graduated from Eastern Montana College in June, 1969, with a degree in Elementary Education, before collecting a Masters in Computers in Education at Lesley College in 1989.

Schatz retired in 2008 after 39 years of working in the Sheridan schools, having been hired as a fourth grade teacher at Coffeen Elementary School in Sheridan before transferring to Woodland Park where he spend the next nine years. In 1989 he moved to Central Middle School in Sheridan to teach computer keyboarding, word processing and introduction to the internet.

In 1997, he was asked to move to the district level to help install the Internet and train teachers on the use of the Internet in their lesson materials. As the Internet became available in the schools, he and Walt Wragge became teacher instructors for the Goodlad project at the University of Wyoming.  These continued for six years in the summers at the University of Wyoming.

In 2000, he moved to Sheridan Junior High School as the keyboarding, word processing, and Excel teacher. In 2004, he was asked to move back to the Elementary level to become a traveling computer teacher for all the Sheridan elementary schools before his retirement in 2008. Wayne and his wife, Roanne have raised six children and have 12 grandchildren.