Boychuck retires after 19 years of substitute teaching at Northwood

Alex Boychuck, at 84 years old, looks much younger than he is. “That’s because of sports. I was always active with sports. It kept me young. And students kept me young.”

Boychuck is retiring from substitute teaching this year. He has been with Northwood for 19 years. Before coming to North Carolina, Boychuck held many jobs. He was born in Pennsylvania’s coal region and attended college on a football scholarship.

Substitute teacher Alex Boychuck is retiring after 19 years at Northwood.
Substitute teacher Alex Boychuck is retiring after 19 years at Northwood. Adrianne Cleven/The Omniscient

“I was interested in sports: football, wrestling and track. And I thought that was enough,” Boychuck said. “Football was my first love.”

Boychuck struggled to stay focused on school while in college.

“If I had to go back, I would do it all over again in a different way. Academics would be first,” he said. “I dropped out of Bloomsburg after two and half years and lost my scholarship.”

After that, Boychuck said he “just wandered around.” Boychuck worked at General Motors and at a meat packing plant before the Korean War began.

“I figured I might as well join [the military], instead of being drafted,” Boychuck said. “If I joined on my own, I could tell them what I wanted to do.”

Boychuck said he attempted officer’s candidate school, but didn’t enjoy it.

“It was good, but some of the things they made you do… scrub the floor with a toothbrush and all that stuff.”

“I was a son of a gun,” Boychuck said of his younger self.  “I was terrible, but it took stuff like that to wake me up.”

After being discharged from the military, Boychuck worked at a bank for three years.

“Oh, it was about 10 years later,” Boychuck said, that he received a call from a friend from officer’s training school. “‘Hey Boychuck, remember me?’ I said, ‘Who is this?’”

The friend invited Boychuck to be an assistant football coach at Graceland University in Iowa. Boychuck and his wife, Shirley, visited the college.

“We enjoyed it,” Boychuck said. “My wife agreed with me, so I said, ‘Let’s do it.’ We went back and sold everything—sold my car—bought an old ’57 Mercury, drove out and stayed for two and a half years.”

While at Graceland, Boychuck finished his bachelors’ degree in physical education. He and his wife moved to Ithaca, New York, where he worked as a high school P.E. teacher and track and football coach. He later moved to Pennsylvania because of “the weather” in Ithaca, and got a job as a project coordinator at Trenton State University. However, they didn’t stay long.

“We wanted to go up north because my wife and I are skiers,” Boychuck said. “We ended up in Danbury, Connecticut.”

Boychuck worked in Danbury for 25 years as a guidance counselor, a vice principal and eventually a regional administrator. He retired at age 63.

“I retired after 35 years of education, and then I came here and served 19 years as a substitute teacher,” Boychuck said. “I couldn’t get it out of my system, you know? And here I am, kid, talking to you.”

Boychuck said his wife encouraged him to look for a role in Chatham County Schools after they retired to North Carolina.

“I didn’t plan on it,” Boychuck said. “I said, ‘You know, I’m going to have a lot of time on my hands, what am I gonna do?’ And she says, ‘Well, you’ve been in education for a long time, get down to the high school and see what they have.’”

Boychuck said he was initially offered a position as an assistant principal.

“I didn’t want to get into that rat race again,” Boychuck said. “So [then superintendent] Larry Mayview said, ‘Well, how about substitute teaching?’… And I said that sounded good. So I’ve been here for 19 years.”

Boychuck is known by students at Northwood for his easygoing demeanor and words of advice.

“I’ve always said this to the students—why are you always taking this so lightly? You’ve got to be serious about your education,” Boychuck said. “Don’t close that book, keep it open. And listen to what the teacher says. You’ve got to graduate and go on to college.”

Boychuck said that what stayed constant through his varied career experiences were his interest in education, and his wife and family. He has a son and a daughter who both went to Graceland University and describes them as “wonderful kids.”

“Don’t get married until you graduate. I tell you, you gotta meet the right person, because they can make you or break you,” Boychuck said. “[Shirley] stuck with me, and she was a saint, I’ll tell you.”

Boychuck plans on staying active in the area after leaving Northwood.

“You’ve gotta keep going,” he said. “If you don’t, you might as well just lay down and say bye.”

When asked what he will miss about Northwood, Boychuck said immediately “the kids.”

“You can come here down and out, walk in the door, and they’d slap you on the back, ‘Hey, Mr. B!’” Boychuck said. “They get you working again; they sort of pick you up. And I’m gonna miss that. Very much.”

Boychuck wrote in a letter to the school, “Thank you to the students, teachers, secretaries, cafeteria workers and janitors for the golden memories that have lightened [my] path of life.”

– By Frances Beroset