New Teacher at RLCC Theresa Champagne

Theresa Champagne started teaching in RLCC this year as a special education person that followed kids around the building if they needed help. 

She was born in 1972, five weeks premature but healthy. She has been married to Scott Champagne since 2016, but she started dating him in 2008. 

Mrs. Champagne has three children. The oldest is named Dalton Morel. He is in the National Guard and is deployed in DC, Maryland in Fort Andrew. He is also married and has two daughters. The second son is named David Morel. He is at school in Northland for Auto body, he lives in Grand Forks and helps take care of his nephews. The third son’s name is Delvin Morel. He’s in the Air Force currently stationed in California learning to maintain missile silos. When he is done, he will be stationed in Montana.

Mrs. Champagne came to RLCC was because Principal Randy Pederson asked her why she was not teaching and asked her if she was willing to come to the school and work for him. She said yes and has loved working here ever since. Besides working at the school, she also does 30 hours a month at Pioneer Memorial in Erskine in activities.

The schooling that she did to get to the point in her life was starting off in nursing school, but that did not suit her as teaching did, so her mom encouraged her to find a new route. She’s loved teaching and being with kids ever since her mom helped her. Mrs. Champagne also graduated from MSUM in the winter of 2008 with a degree in Special Education.

Champagne’s plans to be at RLCC for quite some time because she quoted “I love it here”. One of her most favorite hobbies is baking.

Back when Champagne was in high school her favorite past times were horses and running. She qualified for the state Class B track meet in May of 1985 when she was only 13 years old.

Something quite tragic happened in her life though to set her back more than someone else. One August 15 her cousin and she saddled some horses and went on a ride. She was told that her boyfriend and she were racing the horses, but they came around a corner of a house and her horse had slipped in some mud that her sister was playing in with water. The horse had fallen and because she was riding in tennis shoes, she fell off. She flew about 20-25 feet and landed on her head and became unconscious. She ended up being in a coma for nine days in a hospital in Bismarck, North Dakota. This is her quote from waking up from a comma, “I want everyone to know that when you come out of a comma it’s not like in the soaps. You don’t just all of a sudden wake-up! There are several stages of consciousness.” 

When Champagne woke up she was completely paralyzed in the left hemisphere of her body, was unable to speak, and was unable to remember things for more than a few minutes. She thought that she was in a dream while in the hospital, and only wanted to wake up from it. After being in the hospital for a while now, she started rehabilitation. She went to speech once a day and OT and PT twice a day. After a little bit of time doing speech, OT, and PT, she started learning how to walk again. She said though that it was not long before she was able to walk again. After two months, two weeks, and two days of being admitted to the hospital, she was finally being released after all the hard work she did to get better. 

When Mrs. Champagne got home she started out with half days at school, but that only lasted about a week for her, then she went to full days. She graduated with her class in 1990, then she took a semester off, and went to one semester of college in the spring of 1991. She met her former husband then,  in May of 1991 and got married in March of 1993. They had three sons total. She worked as a certified nurse’s assistant from 1993-2004 with no modification to her duties. In 2004 though, she began to have severe back pain and discovered that she has arthritis in her back and knees. She then had to find a new occupation. Mrs. Champagne’s first love was always nursing, so she was going to school for that at NDSCS. She made it almost halfway through the program before she finally admitted to herself that she couldn’t do it physically. This really disappointed her because this was the one thing she loved to do. After crying and being sad for two days her mom said to her “For every dream that’s shattered another will come true.” Champagne’s mom helped her find what else she was capable of and loved to do. When Mrs. Champagne started to look at a special education teacher, her mom was excited because she was also a special education teacher, so her mom pointed out all the pros and cons. She is now a special education teacher today at RLCC. 

Some things that  Mrs. Champagne says she cannot do are put up her own hair, take-down light fixtures to wash them, win a foot race with her boys, or cannot do any heavy lifting. However, she is still involved with her boys in wrestling and cub scouts and has earned their respect by helping them with their problems in school, life, and staying involved in their lives. She does become fatigued more easily now and her boys can tell when she is in pain and always sympathize and offer help. All students and staff agree that Theresa Champagne is a great para at RLCC.