Stella Hill coached, directed, taught for 35 years and serves on council
GUNNISON—A retired teacher who coached championship speech teams, co-directed 14 middle-school musicals and now serves on the Gunnison City Council, received the Yule Candle last week.
The honor, presented at the Gunnison Middle School Yule Service Recognition Concert Tuesday, Dec. 7, went to Stella Hill, who retired in 2016 after 35 years in the South Sanpete School District.
Jeff Bartholomew, principal at the middle school, noted that in 2020, the holiday concert was cancelled and the Yule Candle wasn’t presented in an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
“I’m thrilled to be back here tonight,” he said. “…What better time to stop and reflect on those who have made the load lighter for others.”
Hill grew up in Manti. As a young woman, she worked at the sewing plant there. Once when she and some other workers were taking a break and standing on Main Street, Dennis Hill, a young man from Gunnison drove by, stopped to chat and asked Stella for a date.
They continued to see each other while Dennis completed a certificate in diesel mechanics in Salt Lake County and Stella finished up at Snow College.
Two summers after their initial meeting, they were married. They lived in Granger, in Salt Lake County, for seven years before returning to Sanpete County and to Dennis’s hometown of Gunnison.
During those years, they had five children—Andy, Ben, Samantha, Chad and Daniel.
In 1983, Stella became the coach of the Gunnison Valley High School drill team. Later, she coached the speech team at the high school to nine region and five state championships.
In 1997, she completed a degree in elementary education with a minor in English at Southern Utah University and got a job teaching seventh grade English at the middle school.
She was known for posting poems in her classroom. Every day in her English classes, the whole class recited the poem of the month, ranging from “The Road Less Traveled” by Robert Frost to “Double, double, toil and trouble” by Shakespeare.
But what distinguished her teaching careers was the 14 musicals she staged with another teacher, Kristal Childs.
They discovered they could purchase “junior scripts” from theater companies, complete with karaoke recordings of the music and suggestions for the sets.
Titles of some of the productions they produced include “Annie,” (which they staged twice), “Wizard of Oz,” “Music Man,” “Aladdin,” “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,” “Cinderella,” and the “Lion King.”
Stella’s son, Andy, introduced her at the concert. He said when he told her she might receive the Yule Candle, she said she didn’t think so, because the school only gives the candle to old people.
In accepting the award, she said, “I guess I’m old,” adding very simply, “I’m so grateful to have been able to raise my children in this community. Thank you all.”
For the concert, many students wore colorful Christmas sweaters and Santa hats. Some even wore reindeer headbands.
The concert began with Jody Allred, the chorus instructor, leading seventh graders in singing four numbers including “Let it Snow,” accompanied by hand gestures.
Band instructor Matt Weidner led the sixth-grade band in familiar Christmas songs, including “Jingle Bells” and “Up on the Housetop.”
Then Rebecca Smith, who is doing her practice teaching, directed the seventh-grade band while her newborn baby napped backstage.
Weidner, returned to the stage to direct the eighth-grade band in “O Christmas Tree” and “Carol of the Bells.” He told the audience the date of this year’s concert was earlier than ever before. “And their teacher (Weidner himself) got COVID during the practice period,” he said.
In light of that, “Good job,” he told his students.
After taking several minutes to get all her players in tune, Lisa Johnson led a combined beginning and intermediate orchestra, followed by the intermediate orchestra, in carols ranging from “Jolly Old St. Nicholas” to “God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman.”
