“You felt encouraged and renewed by just being around him,” remembers one student — one of many who followed Dean Collett into teaching.
The school will hold a memorial for him on June 23 at 8 p.m. at its football stadium.
“So we, as children, had to work most all of our lives, however we could, starting as a paper boy, doing yard work for neighbors in the area,” Collett remembered. “I worked at a grocery store for all my years going through junior and senior high school for ten cents an hour, but enough to help bring food into the home.”
Collett shifted to working as a counselor in the 1978-79 school year, he said, and found students were more open to counseling than they had been in years past, as they struggled with academics and changing family dynamics. He gave, as an example, a Hispanic student who had come to him that afternoon. Many of the boy’s friends from Glendale were attending West High, Collett said. “His comment was, ‘I have never felt SO stressed out as I do here at Highland. ... I don’t feel like I belong. ... I always felt good before, but I have nothing to become a part of.’”
“I’m not sure how many people he ever said that to, but that really changed my life. His encouragement made me want to go into education,” said Iemeria, who ended up teaching and becoming an assistant principal at Highland for about 20 years. “When I finally got the job, he was my very first phone call.”
Iemeria said once, when she was getting lunch with Collett at Millie’s Burgers on 2100 South in Sugar House, passing drivers honked their horns and people came up to say hello to Collett as they sat outside.
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