Everybody knows Ms. Fid, the well-liked substitute teacher, who has taught in every position at Park High, except the janitor. But subbing isn’t her only forte. Hailing from Pennsylvania, she previously showed Shetland Sheep dogs all over the country for approximately 35 years, but then decided to move to small town Livingston to become the most well-known sub in the Park County school district.

Connie Fiedler incorporates some of her dog training tactics into her subbing methods. For example, just like she would approach a dog with caution, she approaches a student she doesn’t know very well the same way. She doesn’t overwhelm the student and lets him/her get comfortable with his/her surroundings, and then approaches the student in a calm way.

“I usually survey the classroom when I come in, and any good and reputable dog breeder, when they go in and look over, like if they go to a national specialty, they have a tendency to stand back and survey the whole group, looking for certain things. And I think that has taught me to come in to a classroom and kind of look over what’s going on and the dynamics of the classroom, so my dog intuitiveness has definitely helped me here in the classroom.”

According to Fiedler, otherwise known as Fid, there is way more involved in subbing than just trying to keep the classroom under control. Possibly in the future, she would like to create a substitute training system, where anybody can sign up and be trained under people who have experience. Fiedler’s thoughts are that the school system needs more people who dedicated to subbing, like her, and she thinks that setting up a training system will bring in more people.

Fiedler has one message for the graduating seniors this year: “Strive to do your very very best, your very best. And then enjoy what you’re doing. Sometimes you can’t look at the finances as much as looking at the joy of it, because the joy will keep you alive longer than finances will.”