By Randy Nelson
On Monday, February 15, a large group of friends and families of Norm Garneau gathered to celebrate his life. Norm, who taught in Mini-School from 1980-81 school year until the 1988-89 school year, passed away at 67 while vacationing with his wife, Jane {former MHS bursar}, in Aruba.
The Mini-School staff’s association with Norm preceded his years in the program. Doug and Norm taught 5 years of English at MHS prior to the start of Mini-School and its sister program, SWAS in 1970. Norm and his SWAS colleagues shared office space with Mini-School until the mid 1970s. As the Mini-School students of the 80s know, Norm was always concerned about making education and learning a worthwhile adventure.
He blended his interests in traveling and horses into his curriculum and brought about experiences which made learning relevant to the student. Norm’s trips with Mini-School students exposed them to the uniqueness, the culture, and the history of areas from Louisiana, Florida, and South Carolina to Washington D.C, New York, and Boston.
His love of sports, reading, horses, education, and travel made Norm someone who connected with people from all areas of society. He was involved with and supportive of his four sons, Tom, Tim, Eric and Joe in their athletic and academic pursuits, and are all MHS graduates. We extend our condolences to his immediate family as well as his friends. His party included several former Mini-School students, family, teaching colleagues, horse-breeders, and family friends. We laughed, we cried, we missed Norm, but we were all glad we were part of his life.