Ferda retiring after 34 years as physical education teacher
He’s taught more than 3,000 teens how to drive and countless children the value of living an active and healthy lifestyle.
After 34 years as a physical education teacher at Whitefish Middle School and nearly that many years as a driver’s education instructor, Scot Ferda is preparing himself for retirement this summer.
“I’ve gone to school my whole life, either as a student or teacher,” Ferda said. “This fall will be the first time ever I’m finally not going back to school.”
Ferda, 57, was born and raised in Great Falls and attended college at the University of Montana where he played football. After graduation in the summer of 1981 he drove to Whitefish, sight unseen, to interview for an open P.E. position.
“I had heard of Whitefish, but didn’t know anything about it,” he recalled.
He got the job — Joe Malletta was principal and Russ Giesy was superintendent — and the rest is history.
“It was a gift,” he said. “I have the best job ever teaching middle school kids physical education. There’s nothing like it — it’s not even a job.”
His office at the back of the middle school gym has been the birthplace of a thousand nicknames he’s bestowed upon nearly every student he’s instructed. Ferda is notorious for coming up with quirky races around the holidays — the reindeer run, turkey trot, and Halloween howl — a testament to his fun-loving approach to teaching fitness.
“Each day the kids get all of me,” he said. “I am all in trying to match their intensity.”
He says he’s never catered his classes to the so-called jocks. He just wants everyone, athlete or not, to have fun.
But his classes have never been a cakewalk, either. Just ask any of his former students about the Ironman and Ironwoman contests. The 10-minute fitness battle features line runs, a bear crawl, crab walk, jump rope, lunges, stair climbing, and more.
“It’s a continual non-stop work out, the kids just go,” he said.
“I think I teach hard and there is a purpose to it. It’s a fun job to challenge them, push them.”
He brings the same intensity when getting into a vehicle with a new driver — the stakes are too high not to.
“Tell me anything you can do well with six hours of instruction,” he said. “You can’t pole vault, play trumpet, ski — and I’m trying to get kids ready to drive in that amount of time.”
He’s had to grab the wheel and pull the brake more than a few times, and he’s never been afraid to fail a student that isn’t road ready.
Ferda knows all too well how tragic Montana’s highway can be.
“I’m a product of the bus accident,” he said, referencing the 1984 Whitefish High School wrestling bus tragedy that claimed nine lives.
The Bulldog wrestling team was returning from a dual at Browning when their bus collided head-on with a jackknifed fuel-tanker on an icy Highway 2 near Essex. The deadly collision led to an explosion and a fire.
Ferda says he was supposed to be on that bus with the wrestling team, but that he didn’t go because he was catching up on some grading.
He says there’s not a week that goes by that he doesn’t think about his fate that day.
“That changed my life,” he said. “I am a way better husband and father and teacher because of that terrible tragedy. I learned a lesson about how unfair life is.”
“You’re never promised another day.”
Brett Bollweg has been tapped as the new middle school P.E. teacher. Ferda says knowing the job is in good hands makes it easier to walk away.
“I’m overly excited about who I’m passing the baton to,” he said.
In retirement, Ferda doesn’t plan to do much lounging. He envisions days in Glacier Park bagging all of the 10,000-foot peaks, traveling, and tackling some long bike rides across the country. And he’ll get to spend more time with his wife, Julie, and three grown children, Tucker, Taylor and Ashley.
While he has some nerves about the next phase in life, Ferda says he’s going into it with eyes wide open.
“I’m not just tired of teaching or sick of the kids,” he said. “It just seems like it’s time to go on another great adventure.”