Beloved long-time Sunshine Coast teacher, June Wilson, passed away at the age of 84 this month and a massive contingent of Coasters are expected to head to Burnaby to pay their respects at her memorial service this Sunday, Feb. 1.
Wilson taught on the Coast for four decades, ending her career at Elphinstone Secondary School when Deborah Luporini was serving as principal in 2007. At the time Wilson was teaching English to Grades 11 and 12.
“June was an amazing woman,” Luporini said. “This is how every day started. She arrived to school at 6:15 a.m. every morning, she unlocked all the doors, she put the block rotation schedule up and then she sat at the front desk and answered the telephone because she believed that when parents got on that 6:20 a.m. ferry, if they needed to call the school and tell us something about their child, that they needed to speak to a live person. She was there every day.”
Wilson also used those early morning hours to help students who were struggling.
“Kids would be required to be at school at 7 a.m. because they were struggling in her course and she needed to be able to work with them,” Luporini said, laughing that students often found the early morning wake up difficult.
“She would give them a topic and they would write an essay and she would sit there and go through the essay with them and help them with whatever it was they needed, and then they’d try it again. Once she saw they had gotten into the rhythm, then they didn’t have to come anymore.”
While many students weren’t excited about the extra work at the time, almost all of them sang Wilson’s praises afterwards, many crediting the dedicated teacher with getting them through English, Luporini said.
Wilson was also known for helping people get through difficult times outside the classroom. She was a woman of some wealth and was happy to give when and where it was needed.
Fellow Elphi teacher Susan Mearns remembered when she hit some financial difficulty and Wilson offered her assistance.
“She was a very giving person in many ways and I’m not the only family she helped out. There were many,” Mearns said.
Mearns was pregnant when she received Wilson’s help and said she should name her baby boy after Wilson — Henry Thomas Wilson Mearns.
“This is where the story gets funny because June being June said ‘oh no, I have to have top billing,’ and so I had to rename my child Wilson Henry Thomas. She had a strong personality and when she asked you to do something, you bloody well did it,” Mearns said with a chuckle.
Wilson spent her weekdays on the Coast, and had a home in Burnaby that she travelled to on the weekend. In her later years she moved into a care home in the Vancouver area.
Mearns was able to visit Wilson at the care home this past Christmas.
“I took her out for coffee and she was sitting in the mall at Tim Hortons and she was so excited because there were kids running around,” Mearns remembered.
“When I left her there at her home she was wearing the most beautiful purple coat with a beautiful purple scarf and a big smile on her face. That was about two weeks before she passed away, so I’m glad I have that memory of her because she really was such a lovely lady and giving and kind — just beautiful.”
Wilson passed away on Jan. 11. She taught well over 10,000 students during her teaching career that spanned a total of 56 years on and off Coast.
She was honoured at the Jan. 13 school board meeting by board chair Betty Baxter, who said although she didn’t know Wilson personally, her impact was legendary.
“She is one of those rare individuals who has left what I call an echo of her practice, and that remains with our current staff and with former students and current students,” Baxter said. “When someone is so grounded in their professionalism and their practice and their passion that 10 and 20 and 30 years later people still are talking about the impact of that particular teacher, that’s something special,” Baxter said.
“So I wanted to take some time and talk about June Wilson. Our district is far, far better for her having spent so many years here, and it will continue to be good because of her thoughtful practice. She also has, through the Vancouver Foundation, a scholarship that is still awarded to Elphinstone students to this day. I hope that in the future we can continue to be inspired by someone who was so successful and so committed to doing the job of teaching to the miracle that it really can be.”
A memorial service will be held for Wilson this Sunday, Feb. 1 at 2 p.m. at the Kingsway Foursquare Church, 4061 Kingsway Avenue in Burnaby.
