Ronan bids fond farewell to Rita Tingey
Hey savvy news reader! Thanks for choosing local.
You are now reading
1 of 3 free articles.
When Rita Tingey joined the staff of Ronan-Pablo School District No. 30 in the fall of 2009, she said she had one simple objective.
“My first goal was just to survive,” Tingey said with a laugh. “My classroom was on the stage. There was no blackbox theater, no dressing room, no shop to build set pieces in, no costumes, no sets, nothing. I just had a bare stage, and my job was to do at least four productions that year.”
Now, four years later, Tingey has more than surpassed that modest goal. She helped design and build the half-finished stage and used her experience in the theater industry to create a learning and performing environment miles beyond anyone’s expectations. What once was an empty room is now stuffed to the brim with costumes and props for a wide variety of plays, and she teaches nearly 100 students at the middle school and high school level. The set pieces used in productions “rival any performing arts center, anywhere,” Tingey said.
Despite the apparent success of Tingey’s work, she announced her resignation this year and said it came as a result of many contributing factors. Her parents live in Great Falls and are getting older. While teaching, Tingey needs to be in Ronan every day and doesn’t have the availability or flexibility to be there for her parents as she’d like to. In addition, she said she wants to return to writing and directing community productions.
“My teaching gets in the middle of my writing. I spend a lot of time just trying to create lessons for the kids while continuing the production end of things, and I’m always in conflict with that. I feel like this is a better step for me,” she said.
Her proudest moments at Ronan were watching students grow and develop confidence in themselves — both on the stage and in most other aspects of their lives.
“I feel positive that I have had a strong effect on these kids,” Tingey said. “I’ve seen kids come in who were hesitant to even stand on the stage and say anything — let alone act and sing — have the confidence in themselves, even in life, to move on and be themselves.”
What’s more, Tingey said she’d watched a great deal of students struggling with emotional trauma and problems heal on the stage. The experience of acting and performing allows these students to experience life through someone else’s eyes, lending perspective and allowing them to look at their problems and life in a different way.
Ronan Middle School seventh grader Dailee Delaurenti is taking one of Tingey’s classes for the first time this year. She said that if she learned one thing from Tingey, it was to be herself and to not let anyone else influence who she is.
“She’s awesome as a teacher,” Delaurenti said. “My favorite thing is the (classroom) environment. I really like how it’s always happy.”
“I believe in this medium, and I’ve watched (the transition) happen here,” she said. “We’ve had some real, true-life stories of that here, and it’s kids across the board.
“I’m seeing kids want to do something with their lives and believing they can. That’s when you know you’ve had success, when you’ve changed a human being for the better — from the inside.”
Long-time Ronan choir teacher Cathy Gillhouse, now retired, worked with Tingey for the duration of her stay. Gillhouse said she knew of Tingey from her work with the Purple Playhouse in St. Ignatius years earlier.
“She was wonderful,” Gillhouse recalled. “I didn’t work that closely with her; we all did our own things, but I was totally impressed with everything she did.” “She really goes overboard, in a good way. Her productions are amazing, and Ronan was really lucky to have her ... the scenery; the costumes; the plays she writes; the rest of us were just mind-boggled by the work and talent she puts into her productions.”
Tingey and her students are currently rehearsing an adaptation of “Grease” for Ronan High School and will produce another classic, “You Can’t Take It With You” in early May, followed by a community production of “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark” at the end of May.
Her finale will be “Ronan’s Got Talent;” a variety show, the project will come to fruition sometime around the first week of June.
“I will definitely miss the students,” Tingey said. “We have a beautiful performing arts program and I’ve created the best I can. I will go, but that will stay, and it will always be there. I hope someone can step into it and continue it for the students.
“I know that the students have blessed my life, that’s for sure. What we’ve experienced together and what we’ve shared — human-to-human, not just teacher to student — have become treasured memories that I will never forget.”
