When Renee LaFever interviewed for her first teaching job at Kapaun Mount Carmel High School in Wichita, Sister Kathleen Gilbert, principal at the time, jotted some impressions on LaFever’s application.
“Outgoing. Alert. Really ready to start teaching,” Kapaun president Rob Knapp read from the hand-written application. “A very enthusiastic person with confidence for teaching.”
More than three decades later, the Kapaun community is mourning the loss of the popular and beloved psychology and sociology teacher, who died Sunday from a heart attack, according to Chris Bloomer, principal at Kapaun. Ms. LaFever was 55.
Kapaun has canceled Friday classes and its annual Fall Fest to honor her memory and allow students and faculty to attend her funeral.
The school also planned a “glucose builder” reception in her honor – the term Ms. LaFever used to describe occasional classroom parties that featured plenty of sweets, snack foods and homemade treats.
“She was absolutely amazing,” said Sarah Frangenberg, who graduated from Kapaun in 2013 and attends the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
“She was the kind of teacher somebody could make a movie about,” she said. “The things that she taught me changed the way I do things and the way that I think about myself. She taught me so much not only about her subject, but she taught me about who I am and how to better understand myself.
“She really changed my life.”
Ms. LaFever graduated from Wichita North High School and earned her degree from Kansas State University. She began teaching at Kapaun in 1983. She taught social studies at East High School from 1994 until 2001, when she returned to Kapaun to teach psychology and sociology again.
Just this month she started another school year with a whole new crop of psychology students.
Bloomer said Ms. LaFever was a friend, counselor and confidante to countless students and faculty members.
“She had a way of making kids feel safe and secure in her room,” said Bloomer, who had Ms. LaFever as a teacher before he graduated from Kapaun in 1990.
“In psychology, there are some really touchy issues, and sometimes those are tricky things,” he said. “Sometimes nerves are exposed. But she had this way of making kids feel comfortable, that this is a place you can talk about these things and we’re not judging you, we’re trying to help you work through them.”
Students and colleagues described Ms. LaFever as a positive force in the school, a woman who was quick to crack a joke, give someone a thumbs-up or pen an encouraging note to a student or staff member. She loved pugs, Diet Coke and “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”
When colleagues sifted through her desk this week, they found a physics textbook Ms. LaFever had bought at a used-book store, along with the name of the school’s new physics teacher and a note saying, “Need to gift wrap.”
Kapaun officials called in extra counselors and parish priests to counsel grieving students this week, Bloomer said, realizing that Ms. LaFever normally was the one they sought for help.
“She would have been the person saying, ‘Look, this is what we need to do to address this.’ And she is the one who’s not here to help us,” Bloomer said. “She’s going to be impossible to replace. There’s definitely a community that’s hurting right now.”
Ms. LaFever is survived by her father, two brothers, sister-in-law, niece and nephew. Visitation with family is 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday; the funeral service is 2 p.m. Friday at Central Community Church, 6100 W. Maple.