Connect with us

Alumni

Bonnie Wolbert: The First Lady of North Clarion Honored by KSAC

Bonnie Wolbert with athletes from the KSAC who presented her with varsity letters from their schools. Photo by Dave Cyphert of ProPoint Media

To some, she is the English teacher. To others the cheerleading advisor or the track & field official at the pole vault station. Yet to others, she is the singing athletic director who stressed sportsmanship, sportsmanship, sportsmanship.

Some know her as Miss Wolbert. Others as simply Bonnie.

But no matter how you know Bonnie Wolbert, you know one thing is true.

She is the first lady of North Clarion County School District.

Someday, hopefully sooner rather than later, something at the school will be named after her. How could it not be?

She is as much a part of the school, the community, as the Wolf mascot itself.

Wolbert recently announced she is retiring after 12 years as the athletics director and 46 years overall at the tiny school at the edge of a cornfield just minutes from the Clarion/Forest County border.

While there is still an entire spring season – some would say that is the toughest season to be an athletic director – left in Wolbert’s tenure, the KSAC honored her at halftime of Friday night’s KSAC girls’ basketball semifinal game between North Clarion and Moniteau.

A short video honoring her was played, and she received a varsity letter from a student-athlete representing each of the KSAC schools.

Watch the video courtesy of the KSAC/Penn West Clarion Athletics

“I had absolutely no idea (they were doing that),” a very humble Wolbert said following the ceremony. “You know me, I am always trying to put our fires or prevent them. And, at the end of the second quarter of that game, my principal and fiend, Eddie Baumcratz, said come on we have to go. I thought, oh my gosh, what happened? So, I got to the halfcourt and turned left to go to the center and I said where are you going? He said we gotta go. I just followed him. And he said just stop right here. And then he walked away. And I said, oh my gosh what are you doing? And then the lights went off, and I thought oh my God. It just continued, and it was unbelievable, unbelievable.”

Wolbert, who spent 34 years as an English teacher, at her alma mater before transitioning into the athletics director role, said retiring wasn’t an easy decision.

“It was so extremely hard,” Wolbert said. “North Clarion has been my life. My great-niece is going to be in ninth grade at Brookville. I missed all of her junior high games. She plays soccer, volleyball, and basketball, I want to see her play. I need to be with my actual family. The older that I get, I am afraid I am going to be missing something because I am not there. I just need to be more available. I am afraid I am not going to get to do some things and be with people that I need to be.”

Wolbert said COVID affected her – not in the sense of her getting sick but in the sense of her not getting out and seeing people as much and helped lead to her decision to step away.

“I started to hibernate,” Wolbert said. “I need to get back out to my friends.”

When she retired from teaching junior high English, Wolbert never really envisioned spending 12 more years at the school.

“No, no, I didn’t, I didn’t,” Wolbert said with a laugh. “When they asked me if I would retire (from teaching), they asked six of us, I live two miles from the school. I tell people I don’t even have a dog to leave out. That’s what I did. I just stayed there. But then they came up with the idea when you retire there is a possibility we are not going to have an assistant principal anymore. So, you could be the athletic director. You trained about 19 of them. That is the choice that I made, and 12 years later I would be this age and people were saying ’are you still there?’

While Wolbert mentioned the training of other athletic directors with a laugh, the true thing is that she helped mentor her bosses.

Superintendent Steve Young was a young teacher and coach at the school before moving up through the administrative ranks. Baumcratz, the principal, was a student-athlete at North Clarion. And the list really goes on and on.

“I knew they could do it,” Wolbert said. “They are there for the kids. They’re definitely there for kids.”

One of the things that Wolbert has become most famous for during her tenure as athletics director is signing the National Anthem prior to nearly every North Clarion home game inside the gym.

“I generally don’t care for a recording of it,” Wolbert said. “Whenever I was in high school and even after, I belonged to different groups and theater groups and things. I love to sing. I just love to do it. And I started singing at the games because I couldn’t find a recording that I liked.”

While Wolbert had worn many hats in her nearly half-century at North Clarion, the one she treasures the most is the one people think she is crazy for liking the most – being a junior high English teacher.

“The crazy part was I really did like teaching junior high English,” Wolbert said. “People think I’m nuts. But it was fun”

Wolbert recalled how she would break the ice with the seventh graders on the first day of school.

“You know, they’re scared,” Wolbert said. “I’m looking at them and I said I’ll start by introducing myself. I am Miss Wolbert, and if you are related to any Wolbert, Bauer, Ochs, Schmader, Schill, or Baumcratz, we are related. Oooohhhh my (was the reaction). That was my first day every year of seventh grade. I had them right there.”

Wolbert acknowledged that some people get her and some people don’t but that her goal has always been to be fair.

“Sometimes being fair isn’t the most popular thing to do,” Wolbert said. “But that’s what I tried to do.”

While Wolbert isn’t going completely away – she is going to retain her seat on both the District 9 and PIAA committees as the female officials representative as well as continuing to officiate track and field at least for another year – she acknowledged she is going to miss the relationships she has built throughout the years.

“I am still going to have some, but I am going to miss the other ADs that have always been friends of mine,” Wolbert said. “We work so well together. And just the coaches that I have met.”

Wolbert is mostly going to miss the people she interacts with at North Clarion.

“I live in a nice school district, a nice area, and I just love people,” Wolbert said. “I just do.”

                       

More in Alumni