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DECEMBER 2019 / JANUARY 2020 • IDAHO SENIOR INDEPENDENT PAGE 5
All About Idaho

LOCAL PEOPLE•LOCAL STORIES•LOCAL FUN•LOCAL BUSINESSES

Longtime Educator, Artist, and Writer

Offers Sage Advice: Just Do It.

master’s at University of Idaho, and meet-
BY CARRIE SCOZZARO ing his first wife.
His trip also brought him past Lakeland
If he has any regrets, Wes Hanson High School, where he would eventually
doesn’t seem to focus on them. At 72, he spend the remaining 30 years of his public
lives a life many might envision for them- school teaching career, teaching language
selves—father and family man, retired arts to college-bound seniors.
from teaching public school, a dedicated “The kids worked their brains out,” said
conservationist, an active outdoorsman, a Hanson, who retired from teaching in 2002.
longtime artist who also conducts work- Although his background is in literature
shops, and an avid reader and poet. and writing, Hanson also pursued art. He
Hanson follows the advice he has lived decided painting workshops with top-notch
by for decades: just do it. Although his background is in literature and writing, teachers were his preferred format.
Hanson also pursued art. He decided painting workshops
If people want to write poetry, he said, with top-notch teachers were his preferred format. “I “I didn’t want to waste my time
they ought to read a lot of it, write some, didn’t want to waste my time with people who didn’t know with people who didn’t know what
what they were doing.” Photo by Carrie Scozzaro.
and only afterwards listen to what others they were doing.”
have to say about it. do something different. So at 24-years-old Hanson is enamored with watercolor,
“They just ought to be brave enough and with little conditioning, other than his preferred medium. “I think watercolor
to do it and accept the fact they might not being young and energetic, he geared up to is delicious,” he said, “almost like being in
be good at it,” said Hanson, whose back- bicycle across the United States. the presence of an emerging spirit.”
ground is a mixture of formal education and Wearing Converse All-Star sneakers, a Although he might still take workshops,
self-motivated learning. bandana, and t-shirt, Hanson spent seven he also teaches them, preferring the con-
Hanson was born in Detroit, pursued weeks covering 3,000 miles. He traveled densed format of a few days. “You really
English literature in college, and ended across the northern shelf of the country have to perform.”
up teaching high school in Michigan for and down into the Idaho panhandle, where
several years before deciding he wanted to he’d eventually relocate, completing his CONTINUED ON PAGE 6

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