Students, staff remember a grand teacher and friend

Oftentimes teachers’ lessons merely float into the student’s brains long enough to be memorized for a test, vanishing soon after. When Bill Higgins stood at the front of a classroom, however, sporting his grand beard and wire frames, his words left a lasting impression on both their hearts and minds.

“He held his students in his palm, they listened to him,” English teacher Jennifer Netz said. “His lessons in class were lessons for life.”

Higgins, who passed away last Saturday in a motorcycle accident, will live on through those he taught in front of and taught beside at Wenatchee High School.

Besides a substitute teacher, Higgins is also remembered as Santa himself. In fact, he’d played up his golly resemblance so much, it became part of his identity, often being referred to as “Bill (Santah) Higgins.”

“He wasn’t just your traditional Santa,” Netz said. “He worked with those kids. He didn’t give kids a photo, he gave them a memory. He gave us all memories.”

And it is shared memories that the individuals who knew him cherish even more today.

For journalism teacher Dave Riggs, memory takes the form of finding a mutual cause in depression and suicide awareness. Riggs and Higgins were among the group of teachers who devoted themselves to making the annual Be The Light Walk a reality.

“We shared the burden of having lost a child to suicide, but we shared the dream of making the world a better place for those who struggle with depression,” Riggs said. “In that sense, Bill was much more than a friend. He was a brother.”

Students now reminisce on the connections they made with Higgins.

“He always gave the words of students more weight than he did those of adults. I think he liked that students always had a layer of honest emotion under what they said, and he spent a lot of time examining their views and trying to see things from their perspective,” Sara Higgins, Bill Higgins’ daughter-in-law, who has chosen to represent the family, said.

2016 WHS graduate Lizbeth Rivera recalls a significant day when Higgins subbed for her AVID class during her junior year. The small class had moved to the library, carrying out research for an assigned project, and Rivera sat at one of the wooden tables along with one other girl. Higgins pulled up a chair right beside them and began to talk to them “as equals.”

“He started to give us a bit of advice on how we shouldn’t be so rushed to get through college and school and get into a routined life,” Rivera said. “He was the first person that was a teacher and was still encouraging me to go to college but at the same time was telling us to take our time as we go.”

Rivera has since taken Higgins’s advice to heart, deciding to take a gap year before beginning college.

“He was a deep breath of fresh air. He made me realize there’s more to life than ‘adulting’ — we need to have fun and take time to find ourselves without all these expectations to pursue prestigious careers and universities.

“While everyone is stressing out about university — which isn’t a bad thing — I’m growing to know myself and more thoroughly find things I’m interested in. I feel more secure with myself and finding a career I actually will enjoy spending money on to earn a degree in,” Rivera said.

Senior Hanna Kiehn-Bautista remembers one of her softball games, which, to her excitement, Higgins attended.

“Most teachers you ask to come to games don’t and it’s a little disappointing. They say they were too busy or they had papers to grade, but he put that stuff aside and came to support our team,” Kiehn-Bautista said.

Inside the classroom, he showed the same support to Kiehn-Bautista, consoling her through family struggles and inspiring her as an individual.

“[One day] he asked what I wanted to do with my life after high school and I told him I wasn’t sure, maybe a scientist [of] some sort. All he said was, ‘I cannot wait to see what you have to offer the world.’ He continued to tell me how proud of me he was and that I helped make his last year of teaching at Wenatchee one to remember. I then shook his hand and left school feeling like I could conquer the world,” Kiehn-Bautista said.

However, Higgins found the delicate balance between friend and teacher, senior Annie Novak said.

“On the outside, he was terrifying. You didn’t show up without your assignments done. You didn’t disrespect him. You always told him the truth. Showed up on time and prepared.

“But he was so much more than that. He was a father figure to most of us. He came early and stayed late at school just to make sure we were able to get the help we needed on our assignments. I had a surgery and he personally brought my school work to me so I wouldn’t fall behind.

“He was one of a kind… Mr. Higgins, have fun riding your motorcycle with the man upstairs. You will be missed.”