Farewell to a true life-changer

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This article was published 21/05/2010 (5773 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

NIVERVILLE — Many years ago, Niverville Collegiate phys-ed teacher Don Dulder took an interest in a high school dropout.

The kid was a 14-year-old immigrant from Paraguay who’d been placed in Grade 3 with eight-year-olds even though he’d been an honours student in his home country.

When officials still wouldn’t let him go beyond Grade 7 after his first year, he quit and got a job in a factory.

Dulder got to know the teen through a mutual love of sports and coaxed him back into school. He not only graduated, but went on to university to obtain a degree in business administration.

On Wednesday, at Dulder’s retirement party, that kid, now a multimillionaire, flew in by private jet to deliver a surprise thank-you.

"You believed in me," said Ben Sawatzky, in a moving keynote speech at Dulder’s party Wednesday. "Tonight, I thank you from the bottom of my heart."

Dulder is retiring after a 37-year career at Niverville Collegiate. He has received many honours, most recently being named Coach of the Year for 2009 by the Manitoba High School Athletic Association.

He built the tiny Niverville school into a volleyball powerhouse. Although Niverville is only ranked as a 2A school because of its size, the Panthers boys’ volleyball team consistently competed at the 4A level against schools many times its size.

Meanwhile, Ben Sawatzky went on to become one of Canada’s most successful lumber giants with his manufacturing company, Spruceland Lumber in Alberta. Spruceland Lumber, with more than 500 employees, has been named one of Canada’s top 100 companies to work for four straight years.

Sawatzky also owns a real estate development company, and is a significant shareholder and alternate CEO in Spa Utopia in British Columbia.

Ben and wife Dorrie run the Ben Sawatzky Foundation, which made significant contributions to fund Niverville’s Heritage Centre and has funded construction of homes for orphans in Bolivia, Paraguay, Brazil, Uganda and Kenya.

Sawatzky recalled a talk with the superintendent of the Hanover School Division in the mid-1970s when he dropped out. "He told my parents the likelihood that their son would become a burden to the state was very, very great."

Sawatzky said he had been "totally humiliated" by school officials placeing him in a Grade 3 class. "I was six feet tall. I was going on 15."

Soccer brought Sawatzky and Dulder together. Dulder encouraged and assisted Sawatzky to form a community soccer team, then the teacher started ragging on the teen to return to school.

"He said if school is not treating you fairly, enroll in correspondence," which Sawatzky did, passing grades 10 and 11 that way. At age 20, he returned to Niverville Collegiate and completed his high school education.

"My dreams began to live again," he said.

"Ninety-nine times out of a 100, I wouldn’t have gone back for a teacher’s retirement. But this man was significant to me," Sawatzky said.

"My opinion mattered to him. That was a revelation. His was the first real friendship I developed with someone I considered significantly my superior."

Dulder said the system had beaten up Sawatzky. "I used to phone him regularly," the retiring teacher said. "I didn’t do anything special. I just talked to him."

It’s those kind of relationships that have motivated Dulder to keep teaching. He could have retired some time ago. Some of his other former students include Mike Hamm, who played professional volleyball in Germany and co-owns Home Run Sports in Winnipeg, and Matt Lux, who plays on the University of Manitoba Bisons volleyball team.

"I never wanted to be an administrator. All I wanted was to work at the grassroots with kids. They keep you young and thinking young," Dulder said.

bill.redekop@freepress.ca