Sitting on his front porch, Mr. G readies himself for
his "first day of school": August 29, 2002. |
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"Born and Raised" in Roselle Park, NJ
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One of six children, Charles Gallagher attended local public schools through the eighth grade before heading off to St. Peter's Preparatory School in Jersey City (class of '66). Mr. Gallagher then traveled to his father's Alma Mater, Virginia Tech. Two and a half years later he was forced to leave school and work full time until he saved enough money to complete his education. Because of a boss who needed an exorbitant amount of overtime and parents who put him back in his old bedroom, Mister Gallagher was back to school in less than two years and graduated from Virginia Tech in January, 1972, with a college diploma in one hand and a Teaching Certificate in the other. Finally! He could follow in his father's footsteps and become a teacher! Mister G. and his wife returned to New Jersey shortly thereafter.
Before he could find a teaching position, Mister Gallagher had worked his way to the corporate equivalent of "a big fish in a little bowl". Then one day, there came along the owners of a "big bowl" who offered Mister Gallagher a position of "little fish in a big bowl". Having had his first child with another on the way, Mr. Gallagher accepted. After all, he was confident that he would not be a "little fish" for long. He left that "fish bowl" twenty-four years later as its Second Vice-President. September 11, 2001 and the months that followed led him down a path he knew he would eventually travel- he became the teacher he had always wanted to be. His wife, finally being able to see the truth of it all, sarcastically commented: "you needed a building to fall on you for you to figure out where you should be?! Go! Be that teacher!" And so,he did. On August 29, 2002, Mr. Gallagher became Belleville High School's newest Basic Skills Math Teacher and has since moved over to the English Department. It took a few more years than I had planned on Dad, but I made it! |