Meter, Wolf, Urteaga bidding farewell
When Thursday, June 30, 2022 arrives, it will be a pivotal, emotional day for three employees of two different school districts that comprise the five-member Western Athletic Conference of Dodge City, Garden City, Great Bend, Hays and Liberal.
This will be the final day of employment for USD No. 428 Great Bend’s Athletic Director David Meter and his secretary, Lana Wolf, as well as for Alice Urteaga, the athletic secretary at USD No. 457 in Garden City for GCHS Athletic Director Drew Thon.
Walking out the door at the two schools will be 76 years of dedicated work in athletics/activities and a total of 112 years of employment in varying levels of education within the two school districts.
For Meter, it brings closure to the only school with which he has worked.
He first served as a teacher at Roosevelt Junior High as a physical education teacher, assistant football and basketball and cross-country coach for 10 years. He went back to school, attained his Master’s degree, and returned to Great Bend for another nine years as a physical education teacher.
From 1989 to 2000, he was the elementary principal at Park Elementary before taking the reins of the Great Bend High School athletic director in the 2000-2001 school year.
The only secretary he has relied on during his 22 years as athletic director is Wolf, having held her athletic secretary position all 34 years of her employment. A native of Great Bend, Wolf has seen her children and now grandchildren, graduate from GBHS.
Urteaga, meanwhile, began her employment in USD 457 in 1976 where she served four years as a secretary to three bilingual programs. She took a 10-year break to help raise her children before returning to the world of secretarial work.
From 1991 to 2001, she had been employed in the Plant Facilities office, the Counselor’s office at GCHS, and a secretary to one of the assistant principals. In 2002, she became the full-time athletic/activities secretary and has worked for three athletic directors during her tenure.
A lot has changed over the decades for the three retiring staff.
“Technology is the biggest change and the pace of what we do things,” Meter said in talking about his career. “Communication has changed dramatically with emails, text messaging, Zoom meetings. Social media has added another dimension of what we have to pay attention to.”
Wolf, who has worked with four athletic directors during her time at Great Bend High School, said she would miss planning details of events, the interaction she has had with student-athletes, parents and the community.
“There are so many different facets of what we do that I really don’t know where to start,” Wolf said in a recent interview. “Working on contracts with other schools, schedules and the timing of all the events and planning to make sure everything runs smoothly.”
Wolf said that she and Meter would often serve as a double-check on many of those details in planning for games.
“You have to be a good back-up for each so we don’t miss anything,” she said. “You have to have facilities prepared, workers, and taking care of the visiting teams. There’s just a lot of details you make sure runs without any problems.”
Meter and Wolf said that when an event finishes, and everything went off without any miscues, it leaves them feeling satisfied.
“Anything we do to make the events work for the kids is always a good feeling,” Wolf said. “There are just a lot of behind the scenes things that the general public never sees.”
Garden City’s Urteaga is the lone secretary for the sprawling GCHS athletic/activities office, which coordinates 22 varsity sports, junior varsity, freshman and another 15 to 20 activities at the school.
“Just handling the financials of all of this I handle somewhere around 150 accounts,” Urteaga said in explaining some of her duties. “We check student eligibility and file paperwork with KSHSAA (Kansas State High School Activities Association). We have our own school eligibility standards that we maintain by coordinating with all of our coaches, teachers and sponsors.”
Like her colleagues from Great Bend, Urteaga said the technological advances have in many ways made her job easier in handling more work in a more timely fashion.
“Now we do a lot of online ticket sales, so that makes it easier when you are at a game,” Urteaga said. “It seems like the school year is just busy all the time, so there’s no real down time. Fall sports is a busy time (7 varsity sports). Winter is still busy, but you are inside in a gym (7 varsity sports) and spring is just crazy (eight varsity sports). You just go a day at a time; try to stay ahead of your events to be sure everything runs like clockwork.”
Urteaga said she will miss the students, coaches, parents coming into the office where she has made many friends during here time at GCHS.
“You really get a chance to know everyone and they become good friends,” said Urteaga, who said she plans to continue attending some of the athletic events as a spectator.
She and her husband, Frank, plan to travel to spend time with children and grandchildren out of state and she says she is an avid quilter who enjoys crocheting.
“I want to be able to wake up in the morning and drink my coffee and just relax,” Urteaga said with a smile. “I’m sure I will miss the people.”
Wolf’s husband was a school administrator who worked in education for more than four decades. He retired a few years earlier, so she indicated they hoped to travel to watch grandchildren compete in athletics. She also enjoys cooking, reading, which as she said, “I just don’t find the time to do those when I’m working a lot of hours.”
Her family will get more of her time, she says, and the opportunity to be a spectator has great appeal.
“Many of my days begin early, and then when we have home events, I’m getting home really late,” she said. “I think I will enjoy not having a daily schedule or routine.”
Meter said he fully appreciates the professional work Wolf and Urteaga undertake each day they are in the athletic office.
“Lana had already been there when I was a beginning athletic director,” Meter recalled. “She knew so many of the details and she was familiar with all the KSHSAA rules and was instrumental in my learning my job.
“We worked well together and in many of the things we need, it helps to have four eyes looking over all the details. We’ve gone back and forth to make sure we have everything planned and she’s been a great help to me.”
Meter said secretaries like Wolf and Urteaga are like an assistant athletic director.
“They are the face of our office in many of the events we do,” he said. “You have to be calm, confident and most of the time they are the first person people talk to when they have problems that need to be solved.”
Urteaga said that through her two decades of working in the GCHS athletic office, the pace of work has increased.
“It’s just always busy and today it’s just harder for me to keep up, so I know it’s the right time to retire,” Urteaga said. “Obviously, there will be people I will miss, but I am ready to see my life slow down and enjoy doing family things.”
One thing is for certain, the transition to a new athletic staff at Great Bend and the office at Garden City will see significant change when July 1 arrives and the planning for the 2022-2023 school year begins. The WAC family is losing much of its history, but the influence they have had will carry on.
