On Friday, Sept. 28, three secretaries, Karen Corwin, secretary to the activities director; Lu Ann Most, guidance secretary; and Jill Ralph, secretary to the principal called their careers at LHS to an end.

Karen Corwin

Karen Corwin works with Activities Director, Jon Sumner, and she’s been with Rockwood for nearly 14 years. She began as a preschool teacher at Clarkson Valley and started at Lafayette as a floating secretary.

“I would go wherever they needed me-grade level offices, the library, any number of things that they needed help for. If a secretary was out sick, I would go cover her position, so I learned a lot about what goes on and how to do things around the building,” Corwin said.

She has been the secretary to the activities director for two years. She takes deposits and puts in orders for athletics and fine art needs.

“I get about 80 emails a day that I have to act on. If I didn’t act on them it’d pile up. That consumes a lot of time just working on the questions people have or figuring out their problems,” Corwin said. 

She has worked with the new director, Jon Sumner, closely throughout her last year at the school.

“He’s a lot of fun; he’s very dynamic, very good. I think he’s doing great. He is so passionate about the school, the kids and sports, so he’s gonna do very well,” Corwin said.

Corwin has met a lot of people through her job and hopes to keep in touch with the school as well.

“Everybody here is just like, my friends, my family, it’s just a great place to work and we have some really awesome teachers and great administrators. I want to stay involved in some way. I want to enjoy just laying around eating bonbons first,” Corwin said. “Maybe work the games or something like that.”

Despite the memories she will lose, Corwin is looking forward to adding a new friend to her life.

“I’m getting a puppy Sunday, so I’m really excited about that, so as I get sad about leaving here I have that excitement facing me,” Corwin said.

She advises the next person to have her job to, “Take your vitamins. It’s a busy job, it’s a very busy job,” she said.

Lu Ann Most

Lu Ann Most works as a member of the Support Staff and assists with the A+ program. She started at Lafayette 17 years ago in the Math Department, then worked for the associate principal here. After that, she moved to the main office of Chesterfield Elementary for around 5 years. From Chesterfield, she came here and has been in this position ever since, helping mainly with A+ and standardized testing.

“It’s so helpful for the students, A+, the scholarship money for the students to continue on from high school for some free tuition, some scholarship programs that are in Missouri schools, and it’s great financial benefit for them and then all the other testing is just helping them get to where they wanna be,” Most said.

Her job working with A+ has many responsibilities. Meeting so many kids comes along with helping them throughout high school through such a job.

“I accept the applications and put everything in the system, I collect log sheets from the tutoring and put them in the system and letting them know their hours and make sure that they know they’re on track, and I answer any questions any of the grade levels have on A+, same with parents, and at the end of the school year certifying them with a stamp and letting them know whether they’re A+ certified or not,” Most said.

Beyond her relationship with the students, Most has made connections with the other staff in her department. She hopes to keep in touch with them moving forward. They already have a tradition to meet up outside of school.

“Stephanie [Dolan] and I do time for dinner, so we make meals together once a month for our families and then some others of us go to dinner once a month and just catch up,” Most said.

Alongside keeping up with her peers, Most has many other plans once she retires. One of these things is something she has wanted to do for many years.

“I’d like to start taking piano lessons at some point. It’s something I’ve wanted to do since I was little, but my mother put me in violin because we couldn’t afford a piano. I’ve got a keyboard, so now I just need to find a piano teacher for someone my age,” Most said.

She looks forward to her retirement but acknowledges she will miss the people she has met especially from Lafayette. She cites her favorite memories as dancing with staff at the all-school assemblies, having department birthday luncheons and volunteering for the Choice Awards for many years.

“Enjoy the students, enjoy the school, participate, it’s a really great place to be,” Most said.

Jill Ralph

Jill Ralph, secretary to the principal, has worked at the school for 20 years, She began her work  in the attendance office, then moved to a  grade level office. She then moved to become a finance secretary, then she was a secretary to the associate principal and  finally completes her career as the principal’s secretary. 

“I have no routine I have job assignments but its a lot of different things every day. Just when I think I’m going to have a routine one day then, no, there are other things that need to be taken care of,” Ralph said.

Despite having no routine, there are some consistent tasks she is responsible for. Her main job is to assist Principal Karen Calcaterra with her daily tasks.

“I keep a calendar for her and try to keep her on task and try to take care of her and make her the best principal she can be and be her support. It’s been a blast working for her,” Ralph said.

She has already begun working on planning activities once she retires. Specifically, she looks forward to traveling. Ralph says there are only five or six states she hasn’t been to.

“My husband is going to retire in a few months also, so we’ve got four or five trips in the works that we’re working out the details on. We’re going to the northeast this summer, we’re going to try to do a trip to Vancouver, we’re going to do the upper peninsula of Michigan. I’ve been to most states but I’ve never been to Arizona so we definitely wanna do Arizona, so I’m looking forward to doing that,” Ralph said.

Associate Principal Mike Frankin’s secretary, Connie Schumacher, will  move into Ralph’s spot.

“She’s been in the school for a long time also, so she’s very well qualified for this job and she knows not to really have a plan every day, just be ready to whatever comes up take care of and make sure kids are taken care of and the staff is taken care of. She knows all that so she’ll do a wonderful job,” Ralph said.

“I am, yes, very excited to work with Dr. Calcaterra and just learn more and challenge myself. We share this office so the four of us are very close,” Schumacher said.