Plainwell journalism teacher Kenny Zelnis doesn’t know yet what he’ll do with his retirement.
“Now I have to figure that out,” Zelnis said. “People say, ‘What are your plans?’ I say now I have time to make plans.”
Zelnis was surprised this spring to get the Matrix Award from the Michigan Interscholastic Press Association for lifetime achievement. He was actually nominated for a yearly award, the Golden Pen.
“This one, I’m pleased at getting because it’s like a culmination, getting a bunch of Golden Pen awards,” Zelnis said.
He recently got a retirement gift from his most famous former student, Dave Coverly, who included a recent tribute in his nationally syndicated comic “Speed Bump.”Zelnis keeps in touch with Coverly, who lives in Ann Arbor. He said he wasn’t surprised at seeing him succeed.
“He was a good writer and a good thinker,” Zelnis said. “He really could have done anything. He was just one of those exceptional students with a gift.”
Zelnis is retiring after 30 years teaching in Plainwell, which, like whatever he’ll do in retirement, wasn’t really planned.
“This job came up and I thought this would be a good one for a few years, and then, 31 years later I’m cleaning out my desk,” he said.
Teaching had been fun because he got to teach what he liked, such as a class on visual communication. When it came time to create a broadcast journalism course, the 1998 bond issue paid for a studio.
“I’m really grateful for the support of administrators, community members and, most of all, the students,” Zelnis said. “All my classes were electives. No one had to take them.”
While he’d miss teaching, Zelnis said, it was time to leave.
“You know when it’s time,” he said. ‘I’m not sure I agree with the increasing constraints on curriculum that the state of Michigan is requiring. It seems like they’re taking the fun out of school and of teaching.”
What students needed to be successful in a much different world created by globalization, he said, was what Zelnis called “cultural literacy.”
“It’s basically understanding what you read and write,” he said. “Kids say, ‘Well, why do I need to know that, so I can be on “Jeopardy”? No, it’s not so you can be on “Jeopardy.” It’s so you can understand where things are coming from.”
One of the pieces of advice Zelnis gives is be interested.
“My biggest thing is that, if you become interested in something, you’ll be more interesting and the world needs interesting people,” he said.
One thing he’ll probably do in retirement is keep surfing. Zelnis got involved with the then miniscule group of people who surf the Great Lakes. He knows Vince Deur, the longtime lake surfer who shot the documentary “Unsalted,” which attracted funding and advertising support from sponsors in the wider surfing world.
“For a number of years in South Haven, there’d be three or four of use out there,” he said. “Now, on a good day, it’s too crowded.”Zelnis has also traveled further away to surf in oceans.
He grew up in Oakland County, then a land of lakes and farms, rather than the suburbs that now cover it.
“It was an idyllic place to grow up, with all the lakes,” Zelnis said.
Above all, he said, he intends to use his retirement to do something.
“I’m anxious to explore other creative areas of my life,” Zelnis said. “I don’t think I’ll get bored.”
REPRINTED FROM: The Union Enterprise By Daniel Pepper Wednesday, June 4, 2008
PHOTO: Plainwell teacher Kenny Zelnis talks to a group of students using editing software to make a video. (Photo by Dan Pepper)
