New teachers join the Gulf faculty

A number of new teachers will join the faculty of Gulf High School at the start of the 2004-2005 school year. They include the following:

PHILIP ALTSHULER is the new technology specialist. He previously taught at Pasco, Mitchell, and River Ridge High Schools. He attended Gaither High School and the University of Florida and USF. His wife is a teacher at Weightman Middle School.

JASON BIRT will be in charge of ISS this year. He is familiar to many students, as he has previously taught at Gulf.

ANGELA COTNEY is the guidance counselor for students whose last names begin with E-K. She has an M. Ed. degree and an Ed. S. degree from the University of Florida. She previously was the guidance counselor at Hawthorne High School in Alachua County. She attended Gaither High School in Tampa. Her father is Mark Cotney, who played for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers from 1976 to 1984 and subsequently coached for two years.

STEVE DONALDSON will teach U. S. History. He has a B. A. degree in Political Science from Bellevue University in Omaha, Nebraska. He is a former intelligence officer in the U. S. Air Force, from which he retired with the rank of Major. He also teaches an electrical apprenticeship program at Hillsborough Community College. He was born in Saginaw, Michigan, and grew up in Indiana.

JENNIFER (APEL) FUGATE will teach Integrated Science and will be the JV cheerleading coach. She has a B. S. degree in biology with a minor in psychology and a B. S. degree in chemistry with a minor in physics from Maryville College in St. Louis. She was born in St. Louis and grew up there. She previously taught at Ridgewood High School, and earlier taught at Zephyrhills High School for four years. Before becoming a teacher she worked for Sea World and for National Marine Fisheries.

CLAIRE E. GABAY will teach Algebra I-A and I-B. She was previously a dropout prevention teacher at Zephyrhills High School for two years. She has a civil engineering degree from the University of South Florida. Before becoming a teacher, she worked for Xerox and Nielsen Media Research. She was born in Cartagena, Colombia, and came to the U. S. in 1981.

JEFFREY GREEN will teach math this year. He has a B. S. degree in mathematics from Elizabethtown College in Elizabethtown, Pa., and completed the teacher certification program at Dickinson College. He was born in Philadelphia and grew up there. He has lived there, and in Sicily, Pennsylvania, New York City, and Los Angeles. He previously taught in the Central Dauphin school district in Pennsylvania and the William S. Hart school district in Santa Clarita, California.

ROSEMARIE LOWRY-CHRISTIE will teach Biology and Algebra I. Although she is joining the Gulf faculty at the start of this year, she has substitute taught at Gulf since 1999, and she also taught Integrated Science and Biology in the 2000-2001 school year. She has a B. S. degree from Saginaw Valley State University. She was born in Flint, Michigan, and grew up near there. She graduated from high school in Durand, Michigan. He has a son and daughter who are Gulf High graduates.

WANDA McCLELLAN will teach English and social studies. She actually joined the Gulf faculty in the middle of the 2003-04 school year. Mrs. McClellan was born in New Orleans and was raised in Monroe, Louisiana. She has a B. A. degree from Northeast Louisiana University in Monroe. She taught at the Renaissance Center in Citrus County for seven years. She has three children, ages 20, 18, and 15. Her husband runs the MRI Center at Community Hospital in New Port Richey. She says she likes sports, and her favorite sport is baseball. She was the Citrus County Teacher of the Year in 2002.

SONIA RIOS will teach Spanish. She is familiar to many Gulf students as she has been on our faculty in past years, but she took a one-year leave of absence during the 2003-2004 school year, and is returning this year.

BRIAN SCHMIT will teach social studies and will be the boys track and cross country coach. He attended the University of Minnesota. He is a 1982 graduate of Countryside High School, where he held the nation's fastest high school mile time, 4:10, for a month. He has previously taught and coached in Minneapolis, South Florida, Tennessee-Martin, and Concordia University. He and his wife Marjorie have two children, Christina, 18, and Jacob, 7.

YVONNE SELL will work with students at the Harbor Behavioral Health Care Institute, a mental health and substance abuse treatment center in New Port Richey.

JESSE STRINGER will teach social studies. He has an M. A. degree in Secondary Education with a minor in history from West Virginia University. He also attended Tulane and Clemson. He was born in Pittsburgh and grew up in Washington, Pa.

VICKI VOORHEES will be in charge of student discipline, along with Mr. Schweiger and Mrs. Coburn. She is a 1970 graduate of Gulf High School. She has substitute taught in Pasco County schools before becoming the Media Tech Assistant at Ridgewood High School. She was born in Cleveland, Tenn., and moved to Florida in 1960. She is married to Mike Voorhees, whose father was Walter Voorhees, for whom Voorhees Road was named. Walter Voorhees was a county commissioner and attended Gulf High School, where he was in the class of 1938.

BARBARA YATES will be the technician in charge of the Instructional Learning System. She previously had a similar position at Bayonet Point Middle School for eleven years, and before that worked in the Pasco school district's Instructional Media Center for eleven years. She was born in Boston and grew up in St. Petersburg.

PATRICIA ZIRHUT will teach in the special education department. Mrs. Zirhut has substitute taught at Gulf High since 1998. She was born in New Orleans, although she grew up in Jacksonville, Florida. She graduated from Terry Parker High School in Jacksonville, and has a B. S. degree in Varying Exceptionalities from Nova University. She is certified as an ESE teacher. She has two sons and one daughter. One of her children currently attends Gulf High; the other two graduated from Gulf. She says that among her hobbies is raising orchids.

Others new to Gulf High School this year are Yvonne Sell (The Harbor), Donna Mastromarino (staffing and compliance), and Josette Mehren (attendance office).