TOWAMENCIN – In a matter of twenty five minutes, a North Penn High School teacher whom I have never met before managed to grab my full attention, erasing my thoughts about the stress and copious amounts of homework I had to do when I got home, and positively changing my perspective about life and education. Teachers are taught to inspire students, although I have never been a student of Mr. Curt Reichwein, he accomplished that goal of inspiring me in a very short period of time. His thoughts and views about life in general were eye opening and insightful. After I interviewed him and two of his students, Zach Wikinson and Jordan Taylor, I left his classroom feeling rejuvenated as if I were a new person.

If one asked Reichwein thirty years ago where he would be today, teaching high school students would never have been his first or even second answer. He grew up dreaming to be a rollercoaster engineer, and he became very close to achieving that dream.

“I was an engineer for 13 years. I worked in engineering for a long time. Initially I wanted to get into engineering to design rollercoasters, and that was definitely not what happened. I got hired by Walt Disney to go to Japan in 1984. I turned that down for several different reasons- maybe I wasn’t quite ready to go live there because I’ve never left America. And to go to Japan where no one really speaks English, I was really kind of nervous about that,” Reichwein said. “I chose not to do that and I respectfully declined the position. I ended up working for a local company where we did municipal work, environmental work. I went from wanting to design rollercoasters to making sure that every time a toilet was flushed, ‘it’ went away. I went from working in fun, to working in raw sewage. It was kind of yucky. First time you open a man hole and look down, it’s enough to say ‘I need to go back to school.’”

After quitting that job, Reichwein enrolled in Montgomery County Community College to earn a teaching degree. He then transferred to Millersville University as a 26 year old.

“I went back to engineering after I got my teaching degree because I was broke and getting married. I had fourteen cents in my bank account. I used every dollar I had saved to go back to school. So I finished my four year degree within 3 ½ years. You can’t get married and not have a job. So six or so years after that my wife said it was time to have some kids so I thought it was time to go teach then and use that teaching degree,” said Reichwein.

North Penn High School was the only school out of the fourteen he applied to that gave him a call back. Now seventeen years later, Mr. Reichwein resides in the back of H Pod with the four other Engineering and Tech Ed colleagues.

“It’s awesome I love it. I get to come to work, play with some cool toys and hang out with kids. What more could you ask for? Not many better jobs out there than that,” said Reichwein.

Reichwein’s inspiring qualities were experienced firsthand with his first period class in October when North Penn’s Thespian Troupe had their annual Trick Or Treat So Tots Can Eat canned food drive. All first periods participated in this event, but Reichwein’s first period came out on top with a total of 241.1 pounds of canned food. The entire school collected 1,669.5 pounds of food that was then donated to Manna On Main Street.

When Reichwein heard about this food drive, he bought the first two cases of cans that have twelve cans in each case. After he made the first move, two students in his class became the leaders, juniors, Zach Wikinson and Jordan Taylor.

“I have never won any of these competitions before and this was the year, since Reichwein started us off with getting the first two big cases of them, I just wanted to continue it because we had a good start so I wanted to win because I’ve never won a North Penn competition before,” said Taylor.

With more than 3,000 students at North Penn, winning school wide competitions is an intense and competitive process. Taylor and Wikinson followed Reichwein’s lead by buying cases of cans at Wegman’s.

“Well, Mr. Reichwein was the first one; he went out to Wegman’s and got one of the cases with twelve cans in it and so Jordan and I came up with the idea that we should go out and get the cases. We ended up going out and finding out that they’re five dollars so then we came back to the class and said ‘hey everyone give us $5 and we’ll go out and grab a case for you.’ So we went out and started grabbing some cases and once we brought them in the one day we realized they’re different weights. The corn ended up being the heaviest one. So when we started getting more money and going out to get more cans, we only bought the corn so we can get the most weight out of it,” said Taylor.

One of Reichwein’s philosophies is to pay attention to the details, and as his students collected the cans they saw those small details of the corn weighing more whereas other students would just look for the cheapest can in the isle. Noticing that tiny detail allowed the students to lead in this competition between first periods, whether or not these students knew it, Reichwein’s views were being displayed through their charitable actions.

“Mr. Reichwein focuses more on small things like paying attention so you know you can get the work done the first time and so he doesn’t have to repeat himself,” said Wikinson. “Just the small things that can help you get better grades in the class. It also applies to all classes not just the engineering classes.”

Reichwein or “R-Money” as some students call him has his influence on engineering students displayed in his classroom by the college flags hanging around the classroom. Every student of his that continues onto a college or university brings him their college flag. Decorating the room, those flags also symbolize how influential Reichwein and the Engineering Department have been to their education. From Penn State to Drexel, the varieties of flags that outline his room vary.

“As a teacher it is a given that what we do helps kids. That’s why we got into this. I don’t think there is a teacher in the building that doesn’t feel that way. I am very fortunate that my colleagues here are incredible, all of them, amazing. Based on the accolades our school receives every year, we have a fantastic teaching staff here,” said Reichwein.

For a man who at first never wanted to be a teacher, he helps and inspires his students every day to become a better person. Reichwein wants kids to make the right decisions and shows them that there are many paths in life, sometimes ones that one may have never even expected to go down. He displays how although he never expected to become a teacher, he found the fun and joy in working with students and being able to teach them.

“I’m wealthy in more ways than money could pay. That’s the key. You don’t measure one’s life by how many zeros are in your bank account. You measure your success by your worth. Your legacy is measured by what you do,” said Reichwein.