Ambrose, Voight Leave Lasting Marks On Holy Rosary School

Even though I didn’t make it to the Mass celebrating the careers – and significant contributions – of retiring Holy Rosary School teachers Bonnie Ambrose and Charlie Voight, I am pretty certain about something … and not just the fact that they have left lasting positive marks at Holy Rosary.

I am certain that at some point, they got into it. She said something he didn’t care for, and he wasted no time in letting her know – or vice versa. They parried with words, body language and gestures for a minute or two, maybe more; then everyone laughed and the fun continued.

How can I be so certain things played out something like that? I experienced it first-hand the day I met them – just a few days after they’d said goodbye to their students for the final time as full-time teachers.

Spend a few minutes listening to them, and you’d come away thinking this pair could never agree on anything; well, not on the surface, at least. But you’d be wrong.

Neither one of them knows exactly what life holds as they move into their next chapters.

Almost in stereo, they said they’d been going to school since they were five years old. A couple of months from now, when Principal Joan Fredrich and her staff greet the student body for the 2016-17 school year, Mrs. Ambrose and Mr. Voight won’t be there.

“Ask me in a few months what I miss the most,” Voight said. Ambrose, sitting across a conference table in Fredrich’s Holy Rosary office, nodded in agreement. “I have no idea how to answer that question right now.”

The pair worked together for 41 years at the school on Evansville’s east side. Fredrich says she would not be in the principal’s office had it not been for their encouragement and support.

In spite of their good-natured (OK … mostly good-natured) picking at each other, Ambrose and Voight are quick to agree on one thing – they love their students. They have taught eighth grade for quite some time, and that made helping out with the younger students an adventure at times.

“Several years ago, we were helping out and watching the kindergarteners during recess,” Ambrose said. “As we finished up and were heading upstairs (to their classrooms),” Voight chimed in, “I heard one of them say, ‘There goes somebody’s grandpa.’” The pair laughed, genuinely tickled by the memory.

Make no mistake – the pair have plenty of great memories. They didn’t have to say it. You could see it in their eyes as they talked about teaching at Holy Rosary as far back as when Jimmy Carter was in the White House. And, of course, they disagreed on some things.

“Things really haven’t changed for me over the years,” Voight said wryly. “I just got a white board last year. It was chalk and the blackboard up to that point.”

“Oh, things have changed a lot,” Ambrose said, giving Voight a look. “When I started, I was the teacher who understood ‘the new math’ … do you remember that term?”

Irony took over the conversation at this point. Here’s the back story. Ambrose began her teaching career as Benedictine Sister Mary Daniel, a member of the Benedictines of Ferdinand. She taught in Gibson County, and decided to leave the order in 1969. She became Bonnie again, and went on to teach at Nativity School and Sacred Heart School before moving to Holy Rosary in the early 70s as the math and science teacher.

She got married, and moved with her husband to Dothan, Ala., for his work. Enter Voight. He had been teaching language arts and coaching basketball at St. Matthew School in Mount Vernon – commuting daily from Evansville. “I didn’t care much for that drive, especially in the winter,” he said, “so I started asking around. Bob Emig, who I knew from coaching, told me that Holy Rosary needed a math teacher; so I applied.

Voight arrived at Holy Rosary as Ambrose’s replacement. Fast-forward to 1976; Ambrose and her family returned to Evansville when things in Dothan didn’t turn out as they’d hoped. And she returned to Holy Rosary – as the English teacher.

So, Voight the English teacher became a math teacher to work at Holy Rosary. Ambrose the math teacher became an English teacher to return to Holy Rosary – after Voight took her math-teaching gig there.

No wonder they indulge in an adversarial-but-fun-filled relationship that has, at its core, mutual respect and love – for each other and their families, and the generations of students they taught at Holy Rosary.