CHUGIAK, Alaska — More than two years has passed since longtime Chugiak High teacher and coach Ed Loescher was killed in a car accident while vacationing with his wife in Florida.
But his memory persists in the minds of those who worked with him and knew him well, and last week they celebrated Loescher's devotion to teaching with the dedication of a computer lab at the high school.
"You've got to create a sense of history so you know what your story is," said Paul Brauneis recently, as he stood in the doorway of the lab filled with dozens of big-screen Macintosh computers. "We have the Steve Primis auditorium, the Andy Kirk courtyard and the Tom Huffer stadium. Mr. Loescher is in some pretty heavyweight company as far as educators go."
Brauneis, a longtime friend of the Loescher family, taught math with Loescher and they coached both hockey and football together as well. It was Ed, he said, who dragged him and his co-workers into the technology era when computers first began showing up in the classrooms.
"Ed's the one who put this lab together," Brauneis said.
Katie Loescher Cole, one of Ed Loescher's two daughters, said the idea for the lab began just a few days after her father died, and while her mother, Debbie, was recovering from serious injuries sustained in the accident.
"We still miss (Dad) every day," she wrote in an e-mail from her home in Washington state. "The community was devastated by his sudden death and my mother's near death from the accident. Just days after the accident, the idea starting floating in the community about renaming the new Mac lab in his memory."
Instead, it is the room always known as the Dell computer lab that will bear Loescher's name.
"He was hard-core PC until the last few years," Loescher Cole said. "Whenever he'd travel, he would go to the Mac stores. But I don't think he'll mind being remembered in the PC lab. My dad was everything technology and it didn't really matter."
Chugiak High principal Rick Volk said the Dell computer lab used to house PCs but today is filled with Macs. Once the computer lab is renamed for Loescher, that confusion should disappear as it will be called, simply, the Loescher lab.
"Ed was always on the forefront of technology," Volk said Tuesday. "He was the first to use computer programs instead of marking grades in a grade book. He used calculators in the class before we did too. It's fitting for this lab to be named for him."
Loescher's death hit the community hard two years ago. While vacationing with Debbie, the 55-year-old was taking an exit off the freeway on July 27, 2008, when a vehicle driving in the opposite direction came toward him.
The head-on impact killed Loescher immediately. Debbie Loescher was severely injured, with a lacerated intestine, broken ankle, clavicle and wrist, among other injuries. She required emergency surgery and took months to recover in Florida before being able to come home. She still lives in the home she shared with Ed and works as a kindergarten aide at Fire Lake Elementary School.
A ceremony renaming the library computer lab after Ed Loescher took place Nov. 12 at Chugiak High.
Ed Loescher was a longtime Chugiak resident, graduating from Chugiak High in 1970, eventually becoming a math teacher and technology coordinator for his alma mater from 1984 until his death. He also began coaching in the late 1970s. As a hockey coach at Chugiak, he helped lead the Mustangs to a victory in the 2000 state championships alongside then-head coach Brauneis.
"He was just as passionate about coaching as he was about teaching," Brauneis said.
Loescher Cole said her mother never pursued charges against the driver in the accident, who was traveling in the wrong direction. Instead, they have tried to look toward the future, and the dedication of the computer lab is one way to accomplish that to keep her father's memory alive.
"Mom's really glad because she does not want him to be forgotten," Loescher Cole said. "She's actually put some time and effort into how she wanted this event to be organized.
"The day we did bury him was really dark, and this is a healing thing for people to be able to come together as a community and have an opportunity for something positive."