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| Si, Riley, Jace and Valerie Thompson out together on a recent Scout popcorn selling expedition. |
Valerie Thompson freely admits, when she first begins to talk of her decision to run for Bonners Ferry City Council, that she originally felt way out of her comfort zone with “the whole political thing.” But in a short time listening to her talk about it, you recognize without doubt that her motives are pure, and deep rooted.
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| Valerie Thompson |
Her dad, Bonners Ferry native Mike Manus, moved to Newport, Washington, in 1985 during a career with Safeway that began while he was still in high school in Bonners Ferry. After he retired, he announced to his family that he was being appointed Pend Orielle County Commissioner. And then, finishing out that first term, announcing that he was running for another term, eliciting guffaws from Val.
Both parents, she said, instilled in her a strong work ethic, but never a single inclination of political aspiration, and following her dad’s stunning announcement, she teased him constantly about his politics.
“Now it's he who is teasing me,” she said. But it's a similar motivation that saw him take his seat on the Pend Orielle Board of County Commissioners in 2012 that compels her to run now.
Both her parents were from Bonners Ferry, but they moved to Spokane for a while, then divorced when Val was young. She still remembers moving back to Bonners Ferry when she was six years old.
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| Valerie's dad, Pend Orielle County Commissioner Mike Manus |
She's been here ever since, and, except for college and travel, has never wanted to be anywhere else.
“I never knew the street names,” she said. “Never needed to! I remember trick or treating, the kindness of neighbors. Riding bicycles, getting together for a game of baseball. To me, Bonners Ferry has always been the most beautiful town in the world, even though I grew up to learn it was called a ‘city.’”
Over the years, she's been told that she should consider running for public office. A gifted speaker, she can say a few succinct words and convey complex concepts and ideas in a way that anyone can understand, and she has long been passionate about this place that is her home.
Her heroes, the people she grew up watching and emulating, were people who loved Bonners Ferry and who were compelled, like she is, to give something back.
“Stan DeHart, Helen Foust,” she said. “They taught all of us. I want my children to have the same experiences.”
She's been an English teacher at Boulder Creek Academy for 21 years and has long been active in the community. In 1990, she earned first runner up honors in what was then known as Junior Miss, and she continues to work with the program, now a Distinguished Young Woman judge in Priest River.
She teaches confirmation classes at Trinity Lutheran Church, sits on the board at the Pearl Theater as their secretary and publicity director, and she has been an assistant coach in a variety of Parks and Rec sports, including soccer and T-ball.
After graduating from Bonners Ferry High School in 1991, she went to Gonzaga University, Spokane, where she earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in English.
She was blessed, she said, to have been able to come home to Bonners Ferry to live, work, volunteer, marry and start a family.
Only once, she said, did she come close to leaving, during the time several years ago that Boulder Creek Academy closed for six months, during which time, she and her fiancé were recruited by a number of programs across the country. But she used the time to finish her Master's Degree in Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Idaho.
“It worked out that I could stay in the community,” she said. “Boulder Creek has been a dream job. I love being in the classroom. I only have four to 10 students, I have traveled, and I have had great opportunities.”
She and her husband, Si, a counselor at Rawlings Community Counseling, have two sons; Riley, who is 10, and Jace, who turns nine this week. Though they live in the “city” and Val loves her elementary school, Valley View, both boys attend Mt. Hall, where class sizes are smaller, and some of the teachers there are kids Val grew up with, including Angie Schneurle, who taught both boys in kindergarten.
“I love Valley View,” she said, “but I know, as a teacher, the benefits of small class size. I also enjoy knowing the teachers my boys, who are in the fifth and third grades, are spending their days with!”
She and Si are both a big part of their sons' growing up: the school, sports, scouts and all that make childhood wonderful. Until now, Val said, she's been too busy to think of running for public office.
“My husband has more flexible hours lately, and he enjoys spending time with the boys,” she said, “It's given me more time to think about what we contribute. I've always been telling people how much I love this community, and how important it is to give back.”
One thing that swayed her to consider politics, she said, was working with her BCA students in a program that had them interview local leaders and then write a book, “Getting to Know You.”
The experience, she said, not only taught her students, but gave her a clearer view of the integral interaction between city and county government, schools, businesses and all the facets that make Bonners Ferry a great place to live.
It also, she said, awakened her admiration for the people who were always there to make sure that Bonners Ferry provided children like her a great place to grow up, people like Darrell Kerby, Dan Dinning, Gary Aitkin, her aunt Kris Larson and many more.
“They and so many like them have inspired me to get involved, to learn and contribute,” she said.
She cited the grassroots effort of the Kootenai Valley Resource Initiative, that sat diverse factions at the same table to discuss environmental concerns, and with time inspired different sides to look more at what they have in common than what their differences were, and that led to a unique partnership that has worked near-miracles.
It woke in her a desire that she give back to the place that gave her so much, and the city council, she said, is a great place to start.
“Since Connie Wells stepped down, I think the city council needs a woman's voice,” she said. “I want to maintain our community, to foster the city and county and other agencies working together, to promote and expand the concept that we're all in this together, our individual successes work to our mutual benefit. When one gains, we all gain.”
That and preserving what she had growing up, and what her boys enjoy now, for the next generations of kids who will grow up here.
“Kids out riding bicycles and playing, parents looking out for them. That's my reality,” she said. “That's my kids' reality, yet we tend to so easily take it for granted that it will always be that way. It won't. It takes leaders like those I grew up watching to see that our policies preserve the things we hold dear, the simple things we too often think just are.”
With your support, Valerie looks forward to having the opportunity to carry on the legacies she was so blessed to grow up with, and to give back to a community that has given she and her family so much.