Preschool Director Who Taught 2 Generations of Kids Retires

OAK LAWN, IL — Cathy Cepican, who’s taught two generations of Oak Lawn children, received a freight train-long recognition parade down Monitor Avenue on Saturday marking her retirement as the preschool director of Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church. It was quite the surprise for Cepican, who was lured home from breakfast at a colleague’s house under the ruse that a tree branch had fallen in her swimming pool.

“When I got home my family was waiting in the front yard,” Cepican said, “but I wasn’t expecting a parade.”

Since 1984, Cepican has sparked a love of learning in the 3- to 5-year- old set. When former students called to enroll their children in Trinity Lutheran’s preschool program, many were astonished to learn that the same teacher who taught them in preschool was still on the job.

“I was trying to go for the world’s record of being the oldest preschool teacher,” Cepican laughed, who is 71.

Prior to joining Trinity Lutheran in 1983, Cepican was a “flex teacher” in Districts 122 and 123, where she taught kindergarten through fourth grade. When her daughter was about to enter kindergarten, Cepican learned that the church was thinking about starting a preschool.

“I was interested in the director’s job,” she said. “1983 is when we started going around and looking at preschools because we wanted to do it right. It took a year to get going.”

Over the years, Cepican’s made enough pretend candy to stock a Fannie May store, managed a pretend bakery, and hung thousands of snowy mittens to dry.

“If we were reading ‘The Gingerbread Man’ we did a bakery, if it was ‘A Snowy Day’ we made a cotton snow man,” she said. “We really tried to strive for creativity. Everything was hands on.”

Although a pandemic interfered with the end of her 50-year run as an educator, the hardest part for Cepican was not having a child to hug since March 13, when Illinois schools were closed. Cepican took to Zoom and FaceTime to finish off her final year of teaching.

“I’d have puppets, and we did lessons on Facebook so the kids could finish learning their numbers and letters,” she said. “We went on a pretend trip to San Diego Zoo. They all brought stuffed animals that they held up on Zoom. We stayed connected the whole time. We wanted them to know how much their teachers and Jesus loved them.”

Preschool graduation took place on Zoom. “Pomp and Circumstance” was played and the kindergarten-bound preschoolers held up their certificates when they names were called. Everyone clapped.

“Cathy loves children and is an excellent teacher,” says her colleague Linda Bensen, who herself will retire after 51 years as the church secretary. “She’s very outgoing and loving. She has a good heart for children and I think being a church-based preschool she could share the faith aspect as well.”

Many of the young well-wishers who stopped by last Saturday got a hug through a plastic sheet from the first teacher many of them will know.

“A lot of my former students now in their twenties were in the parade,” Cepican said. “They always came back to help with vacation bible school. Even though they went to different schools, they became such great friends because of the whole experience of preschool.”