The Daily Platypus

Mr. Lewis with students at Sams Valley Ski & Snowboard Night on Mt. Ashland

Mack Lewis has a degree in English from Southern Oregon University and he is one of just two teachers in the Central Point School District to have achieved National Board Certification, an honor extended to only a small percentage of the nation’s teaching force. He is a member of the Teacher Advisory Board for and a frequent contributor to Scholastic’s Storyworks Magazine, where a dozen of his classroom plays have been featured. He has also contributed articles to Instructor Magazine, and his book, Read Aloud Plays: Symbols of America was published by Scholastic Professional Books in 2003. His latest Professional Books title, Read-Aloud Plays: Classic Short Stories, is due out in 2010, and CPE’s intermediate writing program is based on his book, Super Sentences and Perfect Paragraphs, which is scheduled for release in November 2009. His latest play, a crazy version of Edgar Allan Poe’s Tell-Tale Heart, appeared in the October issue of Storyworks and the March 30th, 2009, issue of Scholastic News. Go to www.mackowiecki.com for more on Mack’s writing.

Mack taught for 15 years at Sams Valley Elementary prior to moving to CPE beginning with the 2008-09 school year. Sams Valley’s Sportsmanship Floor Hockey Tourney and the 5th Grade Baby Picture Program are two long-standing annual events he created. In 2007 he also collaborated with Brock Rowley, Mark Elias, and fellow SVE teacher Charles Hadley to bring back the Sams Valley Mini-Marathon.

In his spare time, Mack snowboards, backpacks, and pesters kids. Since 1994 he’s also been a baseball coach at Crater High School, the 2007 Oregon 5A State Champions. His 2007 team went 23-2 and was undefeated in league play. His 2006 American Legion team was a state semi-finalist, and his teams are consistent twenty-game winners. He plans on taking a leave of absence from coaching for the 2009-2010 school year.

Mack is married to Cathy Lewis, an aspiring textile artist and familiar substitute teacher at Sams Valley School. Their two children, Darryl and Dain, are both students. Dain is studying media arts and animation at the Art Institute of Portland, and Darryl is in the process of transferring from Lane Community College to RCC.