Thomas Melchior

Last updated

Thomas Edward Melchior is an American teacher and author from the U.S. state of Minnesota. Melchior was born in 1936 hand grew up in south central Minnesota, graduating from Belle Plaine Senior High School in 1954. He attended St. John's University, where he was a four-year baseball team starter. [1] Melchior graduated from St. John's with a B.A. in English in 1958, and later completed a M.Ed. at the University of St. Thomas.

Contents

Teaching career

After short stints at public schools in the small Minnesota cities of Montgomery and New Prague, and one year teaching and coaching in Humacao, Puerto Rico, Melchior accepted a teaching position in the Burnsville, Minnesota public school system. He spent 30 years teaching in Burnsville schools, including both Metcalf and Nicollet Junior High Schools and Burnsville Senior High School. Melchior received one of the premier accolades for teaching professionals in Minnesota when he was named Minnesota Teacher of the Year in 1971 by the Minnesota Education Association. He retired from full-time education in 1993, and was one of only five teachers inducted into the inaugural class of the Burnsville Senior High School Hall of Fame in 2006.

Writing career

Tom Melchior's first book, "They Called Me Teacher", was published in 1996. The book is a comprehensive oral history of country school teachers from throughout Minnesota from the early twentieth century. Melchior interviewed well over 200 former one-room school teachers from all over Minnesota. The book was awarded honorable mention in 1997 by the Minnesota Independent Publishers Association.

In 2002 he published his teaching memoir, "From Both Sides of the Desk", which recounts his life and experiences as both a student and a teacher.

Since 2002, Tom Melchior has written extensively about the history of men's amateur baseball in the Minnesota River Valley. While his works "Belle Plaine Baseball 1890 - 1960" and "The History of Baseball in Scott County" had only limited commercial success, they provide an important resource for local historians.

Melchior resides near Minneapolis.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Burnsville, Minnesota</span> City in Minnesota, United States

Burnsville is a city 15 miles (24 km) south of downtown Minneapolis in Dakota County, Minnesota. The city is situated on a bluff overlooking the south bank of the Minnesota River, upstream from its confluence with the Mississippi River. Burnsville and nearby suburbs form the southern portion of Minneapolis–Saint Paul, the 16th-largest metropolitan area in the United States, with about 3.7 million residents. At the 2020 census the population was 64,317.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Belle Plaine, Minnesota</span> City in Minnesota, United States

Belle Plaine is a city in Scott County, Minnesota, United States, about 40 minutes southwest of Minneapolis. The population was 7,395 at the 2020 census.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jordan, Minnesota</span> City in Minnesota, United States

Jordan is a city in Scott County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 6,656 at the 2020 census.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Kline (politician)</span> American politician (born 1947)

John Paul Kline Jr. is an American politician who served as a member of the United States House of Representatives from Minnesota's 2nd congressional district from 2003 to 2017. The district included most of the southern suburbs of the Twin Cities. A member of the Republican Party, Kline served as the Chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce from 2011 until 2017. Kline retired from Congress at the end of his term in January of 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rikkyo University</span> Private university in Tokyo, Japan

Rikkyo University, also known as Saint Paul's University, is a private university, in Ikebukuro, Tokyo, Japan. Riikyo is one MARCH universities, the group of elite private universities in the Kanto region, together with Meiji, Aoyama Gakuin, Chuo, and Hosei.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Schoolmaster</span> Term for a male school teacher

A schoolmaster, or simply master, is a male school teacher. The usage first occurred in England in the early modern period. At that time, most schools were one-room or two-room schools and had only one or two such teachers, a second or third being often called an assistant schoolmaster. The use of the traditional term survives in British private schools, both secondary and preparatory, and in grammar schools, as well as in some Commonwealth boarding schools which are modelled on British grammar and public schools.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">DeLaSalle High School (Minneapolis)</span> Private, coeducational school in Minneapolis, , Minnesota

DeLaSalle High School is a Catholic, college preparatory high school in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is located on Nicollet Island.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dowling Catholic High School</span> Private secondary school in West Des Moines, Iowa, United States

Dowling Catholic High School is a Catholic secondary school in the central United States, in West Des Moines, Iowa, within the Diocese of Des Moines.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saint Paul Central High School</span> Public school in Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States

Saint Paul Central High School is the oldest continuously operating high school in the state of Minnesota, United States. Founded in 1866 in downtown Saint Paul, Central has educated many leaders in business, government, literature, arts, sciences, and education throughout the state of Minnesota and the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harding Senior High School (Saint Paul, Minnesota)</span> Public school in Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States

Harding Senior High School is a public comprehensive high school located on the East Side of Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. The school is one of the nine high schools in the Saint Paul Public School District and is the largest high school in the city of Saint Paul, with enrollment at approximately 1,908. The school was opened in 1926 as the second high school on the East Side, after Johnson Senior High School. Harding is part of the IB Diploma Programme. Harding is a member of the Minnesota State High School League and the athletic teams compete in the Saint Paul City Conference.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Burnsville High School</span> Public high school in Minnesota, USA

Burnsville High School (BHS) is a four-year public high school in Burnsville, Minnesota, United States. Burnsville is a southern suburb about 15 miles south of Minneapolis. The school is part of Burnsville-Eagan-Savage School District 191, which covers most of Burnsville, as well as parts of the surrounding cities Savage and Eagan, and small parts of Shakopee and Apple Valley. Most of the incoming freshmen come from Eagle Ridge and Nicollet Middle Schools. The school mascot is Sparky, a humanoid with a fireball for a head. Burnsville High School athletics are a part of the South Suburban Conference.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Otto Tucker</span>

Otto Tucker, was a Newfoundland and Labrador heritage activist, storyteller, and educator. He was a recipient of the Order of Canada for his work in promoting and preserving Newfoundland and Labrador heritage and the Order of Newfoundland and Labrador for his efforts that have made significant contributions to both the educational and cultural sectors of the province.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vincent Massey Secondary School</span> High school in Windsor, Ontario, Canada

Vincent Massey Secondary School, commonly known as Massey, is a public high school located in the South Windsor neighbourhood in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. The school is under the jurisdiction of the Greater Essex County District School Board, one of the four school boards in Windsor–Essex. The school was named after Vincent Massey, the first Canadian-born Governor General of Canada. Currently, the school has a population of over 2000 students.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">De Smet Jesuit High School</span> Catholic school in Missouri, United States

De Smet Jesuit High School is a Catholic college preparatory high school for boys in Creve Coeur, Missouri, in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Saint Louis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sacred Heart High School (East Grand Forks, Minnesota)</span> Private, coeducational, parochial school in East Grand Forks, , Minnesota, United States

Sacred Heart School is a private, Catholic high school in East Grand Forks, Minnesota. It is located in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Crookston.

The Minnesota River Conference is a Minnesota high school sports conference that serves mainly the Southwestern Suburbs of the Twin Cities. Mayer Lutheran is furthest north while Tri-City United is furthest south.

Samuel Carlson is an American professional baseball pitcher who is a free agent.

Mary Frances Clardy is an American politician serving in the Minnesota House of Representatives since 2023. A member of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL), Clardy represents District 53A in the southeastern Twin Cities metropolitan area, which includes the cities of Inver Grove Heights, Sunfish Lake, Lilydale, and parts of both Mendota Heights and West St. Paul in Dakota County.

References

  1. Tucker 1979, pp. 172–176.

Citations