Several years ago, when I turned 50, two friends made a DVD for me, recording birthday wishes from people around the community.
One was from Don Sturgeon, who offered some advice.
“Don’t retire,” he told me on the DVD.
It was advice Sturgeon himself nearly followed.
Sturgeon, 83, died Dec. 11. According to a Facebook post by his daughter, Krista Sturgeon, he died from COVID-19.
While Sturgeon retired from teaching after 42 years at Franklin County High School, he never really left the building.
He was a regular visitor of Tracy Spickard, athletics director, softball coach and teacher at FCHS.
“He would come to my office once or twice a week,” Spickard said. “He’d sit down for 20 to 30 minutes and we’d get caught up on current events and athletics. He’d share his humor and wisdom. He was pretty much doing that since he retired, and he stayed in touch with other parts of the school."
When I first came to Frankfort, Sturgeon was the Flyers’ swim coach. When he became the school’s first academic team coach, he would bring results by the paper, and back in 2014 he was the person who came to the office and let me know I’d been selected for the Franklin County High School Hall of Fame.
But in the last few years, the places I was most likely to see Sturgeon was in the stands at FCHS basketball games or on the fence along the third-base line at Lady Flyers’ softball games.
“He’d say, ‘Spickard, make sure you give them the right sign,’” Spickard said. “He’d take two fingers on his right hand and tap his left forearm. The was the right sign; that was the game-winning sign.”
In addition to serving as swim coach and athletics director, he spent time as gymnastics coach, a sport that is no longer sanctioned by the KHSAA.
“We had a great gymnast, Bobby Fleming,” Terry Johnson said at a private funeral held for Sturgeon Tuesday. “He could do anything, and Mr. Sturgeon wanted to give him an opportunity to compete at the state level.
“That’s why he became the gymnastics coach. Not because he knew gymnastics, but because he wanted to be a servant to our school and to Bobby Fleming, who won a state championship in gymnastics. Without Mr. Sturgeon he would have never had a chance.”
Johnson, a teacher at FCHS, was a student of Sturgeon’s during the 1960s.
“He was my world history teacher when I was a sophomore, and I took two history phases as a senior only because I wanted to be in Mr. Sturgeon’s class,” Johnson said.
Johnson said Sturgeon’s influence was so great that at least five members of his class became teachers at Franklin County High School — Gary Moore, Gary Dearborn, Tom Roberts, Fran Bradshaw and Johnson.
“We left Mr. Sturgeon’s classroom being much more educated,” Johnson said at Tuesday’s service. “I’m 70 years old, and I still have a hard time calling him anything other than Mr. Sturgeon. That’s how much I respect him. I was 60 before I could call him ‘Sturge.’
“We knew Mr. Sturgeon was one who was called to be a teacher because he was never harsh, never demeaning, never put us down. Not only did he demand from us great work, did he demand from us to be educated, he did it in a way that made you want to learn.”
In 2006, Sturgeon began a 12-year stint as a member of the Franklin County Fiscal Court, serving as magistrate for District 3.
He had the greatest campaign slogan I’ve ever heard — “Get the Urge to Vote for Sturge.”
His greatest legacy, however, was as a teacher. He received the first John Ed McConnell Extra Mile Award, given to exceptional educators.
“He loved his students, and he loved them all the way through,” Johnson said Tuesday. “When you’re 21, 22, it’s easy to love your students. When you’ve been there 42 years it’s not quite so easy. They change so much, schools change so much, but Sturge was consistently a loving and honest and fair teacher.”
And one whose absence will be felt.
“He was my AD when I first came here,” Spickard said. “He was a mentor, a colleague, a true friend.
“He’s going to be missed, for sure. It’ll feel strange not having him around and coming in for our weekly meetings, having the chance to chat with him.”
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Linda Younkin: Sturgeon may have retired, but he never really left Franklin County High School - State-Journal.com
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