She bleeds purple

FORT RECOVERY — Barb Sautbine has struggled with her decision throughout the school year.
She fluctuated between saying she was 95 and 99.9 percent sure she would retire.
Now she has made her decision to step away after more than two decades leading Fort Recovery athletics, but she won’t go far. She’s asked to return next school year as a consultant to help her successor make the transition into the job.
“It’s been really, really tough, because I like what I do,” said Sautbine of her decision to retire. “I enjoy the kids. I like being around the kids. It’s just hard to leave something you’ve been at for 35 years. I just love being around the kids.”
Sautbine turned in her letter of resignation from the positions of athletics director and teacher at Fort Recovery Local Schools to superintendent Shelly Vaughn on March 4, and the school board is scheduled to take action on her retirement at its regular meeting tonight.
Her retirement will take effect on May 31.
“We’re going to miss tremendously her positive attitude around the office in everything that she does,” said Vaughn. “Life is going to be a little boring without Barb around next year. We’ve been so fortunate to have she and (her husband) Gary as a team. It’s not just Barb who has been athletics director for the last 22 years, it’s been Gary too. We’ve been blessed to have them give so much of their life to Fort Recovery schools and athletics.”
The athletics director job will be posted after the board takes action on Sautbine’s retirement tonight, Vaughn said. She hopes to have the position filled by the end of the school year.
Sautbine has been an Indian throughout her teaching career, having been hired as a physical education teacher, bus driver, cheerleading advisor and pep club advisor in Fort Recovery Schools after her graduation from the University of Evansville in 1978. She remembers being shown to her “office” — now the weight room at FRHS in the 1935 section of the building that is scheduled to be torn down this summer — by then assistant principal Pat Niekamp, who went on to become principal and then superintendent.
The Portland native married Gary during September of her first year on the job.
“I was Ms. Clark for two weeks to the students and then I became Mrs. Sautbine for the next almost 35 years,” she said.
Sautbine, a 1974 graduate of Portland High School, started the volleyball program during her second year at Fort Recovery.
She was the team’s first coach, and also served as its junior varsity coach and bus driver.
 “We weren’t very good,” said Sautbine of that first season. “I remember winning our first match (against Ohio City). You’d have thought we won the state championship. … We were thrilled to death.”
Sautbine coached the team for seven years. And in 1990, just 11 years after its founding, the Indians did win the Division IV state title.
She said its those trips to the state finals that she will remember most fondly. Fort Recovery also won girls basketball state championships in 1990 and 1991, and a boys cross country state crown with an undefeated season in 1996.
The boys basketball team was the state runner-up in 1999, and the girls basketball team returned to the state final four in 2011.
Sautbine has continued to teach at least one class every year during her tenure as the AD, including third grade physical education this year.
“I love my third graders,” Sautbine said. “Every year is just special because you get a whole new group of kids. You see them evolve. You see them grow up. You see them become young men and women. …
“It is fun to watch the kids grow up, grow through the years. It’s great being around them. They keep you young, that’s for sure.”
In addition to returning next year to help her successor, Sautbine plans to use her retirement to spend more time with family.
Her daughter, LeeAnn, son-in-law, Nate and granddaughter, Gabi, live in Pinckney, Mich., which is about 20 miles northwest of Ann Arbor. Gabi will turn 1 in April.
“There’s a lot of hours away from home,” said Sautbine of her job. “I couldn’t have done this without my husband. … And I couldn’t have done it without my daughter, without her understanding.”
Sautbine could have spent those hours somewhere else. She had other job offers during the summer of 1978 after accepting her position at Fort Recovery. Several of them offered her more money.
But she had committed to Fort Recovery, and her colors have never changed.
“I’ve always been purple and white,” she said. “I was a purple and white Panther, I was a purple and white Ace and I’m a purple and white Indian. I bleed purple.”[[In-content Ad]]