This former teacher honored is the much loved and respected retired Crater teacher, Vince Wixon, who was honored as the Oregon Teacher of the Year for 1987-88, the second Crater High teacher to receive this award, the highest award a teacher in Oregon can receive.

Vince spent 22 years at Crater as a mainstay of the English department. He taught a variety of courses over those 22 years including Advanced Placement Literature and Writing, Creative Writing and a number of communications classes. Outside of class he was the advisor for a number of Crater organizations, specifically, Brain Bowl, Academic Scavenger Hunt and the Literary Magazine, Inside/Out. He initiated the International Writers Series, a program that brought well-known writers to Crater and other Rogue Valley Schools. His warm, genial personality, wide variety of neckties and the academic rigor of his classes meant that his classes always filled early.

Mr. Wixon did not take the “easy chair” approach to retirement in 2000. His long-time love for poetry prompted the writing of two books of poems, The Square Grove (Traprock books, 2006) and Blue Moon (Wordcraft of Oregon, 2010). He is a board member of the Chautauqua Poets and Writers which brings nationally known writers to southern Oregon. With wife, Patricia, he has enjoyed traveling to Greece, Spain, Prague and the American Southwest. In addition to these activities, he continues to work in Oregon Poet, William Stafford’s literary archive in Portland, an endeavor he started while still teaching at Crater. He is the Poetry Editor of  Jefferson Monthly, the members’ magazine of the Jefferson Public Radio Listeners’ Guide. If this is not enough, he is actively involved in the lives of six stepchildren and their spouses plus 14 grandchildren.