Liberty Bell secretary to celebrate 39-year career this weekend
Debbie Bair rarely sits still.
The vivacious 72-year-old who brought line dancing to the Methow Valley and was a fixture in the Liberty Bell Junior/Senior High School office for decades, before her retirement this year, didn’t expect to spend much time in the valley when she first arrived.
But as soon as she got here, she knew she was home.
When Debbie and her husband Gene Bair pulled their fifth-wheel into a trailer park in Twisp, sometime in the late 1970s, their new neighbors greeted them before they had a chance to get out of their vehicle.
“This is a part that I just love about this valley,” Bair said in a recent interview on the occasion of her retirement from the Methow Valley School District after 39 years.
“We hadn’t been here eight minutes, and all these people introduce themselves and have been lifelong friends,” Bair said. “It’s just been amazing to be here.”
Debbie and Gene came to the valley for what Gene thought would be another four-month stint on a logging crew with Columbia Helicopters. But he suffered a bad broken leg and had to settle into a shop job, repairing saws.
The couple would raise their children here, and Debbie would eventually build community with generations of students, school staff and, of course, dancers.
School days
Debbie Bair got her start in the Methow Valley Schools in 1980. Her oldest son was entering kindergarten, and she started volunteering in his class. She worked as an occasional substitute teacher and then a paraeducator before getting the secretary job at Liberty Bell in the late 1980s.
“I truly felt that I was exactly where I was supposed to be in life,” Bair said, looking back on her decades at Methow Valley schools. “I loved working with kids in classrooms. I loved doing the lunch line and touching base with so many students every day, and when I got the job as secretary in the Liberty Bell High School office, I felt like I had the most perfect job in the world for me.”
Bair’s impact on the school community is hard to measure.
“It’s incredible to consider the number of students and staff who ‘grew up’ in her care during her tenure in the Methow Valley School District,” Liberty Bell Principal Elyse Darwood said. “I owe much to Debbie as she supported and encouraged me in my role, and I know countless others feel the same.”
“There are few people you encounter in your life, personally or professionally, who are as principled and steadfast as Debbie Bair,” Darwood added.
Darwood and the rest of the Liberty Bell community celebrated Bair on the last day of school, in June. Bair was surprised to see a lot of blond wigs on students and staff, after Darwood declared a “Dress Like Debbie Day.”
“There was cake and presents and balloons and dancing and singing and music,” Bair said. “There were 350 people in the gym line dancing with me. It was just amazing.”
On graduation day, Bair had a place of honor on the stage.
“I got to hug every student after they got their diploma,” she said.
During the interview, Bair thanked the maintenance crew, the lunchroom staff and the bus drivers. She didn’t want to leave anyone out.
“I was blessed to work with a number of super-great principals, superintendents and teachers — they all have our kids’ best interest in mind at all times,” she added. “The pathways to growing up are hard sometimes, but we are able to make a difference for a huge number of students as they mature and move on to adult lives, and I am so proud of all of them.”
“I love living in small communities,” added Bair, who described her own “idyllic childhood” in the tiny mill town of O’Mill, Idaho. “There’s just nothing better anywhere because our lives touch other people’s lives in so many ways.”
A dancing tradition
If Bair was known to parents, students and school staff as the secretary who had a smile for everyone she met, she is known to countless others in the Methow Valley as an inspired line-dance instructor.
Bair may be retired, but the dancing won’t stop.
Debbie and Gene enjoyed square dancing in Idaho, but when they arrived in the Methow they learned the valley’s square dancing group had disbanded after a fight broke out.
Growing impatient while waiting for someone to revive the square dancing scene, the Bairs had some friends from Idaho visit to teach them line dancing.
Then, about 1985, Bair started teaching the valley.
Like everything about Bair, line dancing is about the people — “so many people coming together from all different walks of life that you don’t see in any other situation,” she said.
Debbie Bair, left, hugs a graduate during the Liberty Bell High School Class of 2026 commencement ceremony June 5. Bair retired as Liberty Bell secretary after 39 years with the school district.
Bair appreciates newcomers the most. If you see her and she hasn’t seen you at one of her Wednesday evening classes at the Twisp River Tap House, she’s likely to ask you to come dance.
“I love, love, love, love teaching beginners how to dance. I love seeing that spark, and they go, ‘Oh, that was fun!’” she said. “My heart says I’m giving these people a gift they’ve never had.”
Whether it’s dancing or crafting or just hanging out, Bair will continue to build community in retirement.
Her son Don helped her remodel her large garage on Twisp Airport Road with sheetrock, a new coat of paint and new lights. She dubbed it “Debbie’s Studio” and plans to host people who want to gather and just do whatever.
“Anybody can bring anything they want to do,” Bair said. They can bring whittling, they can bring whatever their heart’s passion is, or they can just come and sit and visit. … That’s kind of what I hope the vision turns out to be.”
The next big social event for Bair is her retirement party, starting at 1 p.m. Saturday (Sept. 19) at the Tap House. Everyone’s welcome, she said. She anticipates that former students might gather for impromptu mini class reunions.
“There’ll probably be dancing,” Bair said. “There usually is.”
