Marjorie L. Neihart
This article was in the St. Paul Pioneer Press, on February 6, 2006 and I thought it was worthy of sharing.
Educator, activist served West Side
BY PRATIK JOSHI
Pioneer Press
First as an educator and later as a community activist, Marjorie L.
Neihart inspired generations of St. Paulites to work for a better
tomorrow, family and friends say.
Growing up at a time when there were few female leaders,
the lifelong West Side resident overcame subtle gender
discrimination and encouraged others, especially women,
to become more active in society, said Susan Rostkoski
of Neighborhood House.
"Women in Neighborhood House always say they want to grow up to be
like Marj Neihart," said Rostkoski, the West Side agency's vice
president of resource development and communications. Neihart
served on the Neighborhood House board from 1980 to 1993.
Neihart, the first woman to serve as an assistant principal in
St. Paul public schools, died of pancreatic cancer Wednesday.
She was 85.
"She was a natural teacher," said her nephew Ken Neihart,
a retired educator from the North St. Paul-Maplewood-Oakdale
school district. When not teaching students, she was teaching
the teachers, he said, referring to her last post as St. Paul's
director of curriculum.
In the late 1930s, after graduating from Humboldt High School,
she started as a volunteer teacher at Neighborhood House working
with 8- and 9-year-olds. She received an education degree from
the University of Minnesota in 1941 and moved to Canova, S.D.,
for her first teaching job. But she soon returned to St. Paul
after her father's death to care for her mother and a sick brother.
She worked for the West St. Paul School District from 1942 to 1947
before joining the St. Paul district. Neihart earned a master's
degree from the University of Colorado in 1955 and returned to
St. Paul as an English teacher and counselor at Como Junior
High School. In the early 1960s, she became assistant principal
at Roosevelt Junior High and later was promoted to head of
curriculum development.
She received a doctorate in education in 1972 from the
University of Minnesota. Erma McGuire, a longtime friend
and colleague from St. Paul, said Neihart always mentored
students. Lou Kanavati, the current interim St. Paul school
superintendent, was one of her students.
In the early 1970s, Neihart helped ensure the district got its fair
share of Title IX funds to promote sports programs for girls. When
the first wave of Southeast Asian immigrants came over, she helped
set up English language and enrollment centers.
Neihart, who was single, retired in 1982. As a volunteer at
Neighborhood House, she helped develop a long-term vision
for the place, recruited talented staff and volunteers and
worked to secure funds for the organization.
In 1988, she was named West Side Citizen of the Year.
Neihart also was an active environmentalist, said Susan Barker,
chairwoman of the West Side Bluff Task Force, which works to restore
historic views and protect the river bluff.
Even in her 80s, Neihart always participated in planting
native grasses and removing invasive plant species along
the river bluff.
Just days before her death, Neihart received the Woman
of the Year Award from the St. Paul chapter of Zonta Club,
an international service organization.
She was preceded in death by brothers John, Vernon,
Herbert and Gordon and sisters Emma Stoddard, Evelyn Perron,
Ethyl Wickberg, Alyce Wilde and June Olsen. Neihart is
survived by 12 nephews and nieces and other extended family.
Memorial services will be April 30 at the College Club, 990 Summit Ave.,
in St. Paul.
Zonta Paul
Volume 79 Issue 8 March 2006