Teacher Feature: Fish abandons the school

This month’s teacher feature is a little more special than the rest – not to say that the past teachers aren’t special! For this April, the teacher feature is going to be about this teacher’s final year teaching at North. Richard ‘Dick’ Fisher is going into retirement after this school year, and I wanted to dedicate this feature to him for his last year at Fargo North High School.
North’s favorite bald psychology teacher grew up here in Fargo, and he also went to North for high school. When Fisher graduated from North, he attended North Dakota State University where he “had no idea what he was doing,”, but also coached girls swimming. A small fun fact, he used to sell microwave cookbooks back in the late 80s when he was about 20. Fisher later returned to college to get a degree in psychology.
He has his wife Barb, “who most think is a nice person,” and his two sons. His wife is actually a coach for the boys Swim and Dive at West Fargo. Some husband-wife rivarally, huh? Two adorable dogs reside inside of Fisher’s house, Dude and Walter, both Labrador Retrievers but one is black and the other is yellow. Fisher’s sons are both North graduates as well, being involved in multiple sports. His oldest graduated in 2017 and is doing his own thing, but while he was here he played baseball and did swimming as well. Peyton, the youngest, graduated in 2020, doing both football and swimming with his brother. Peyton now attends the University of North Dakota where he plays football.
Fisher has reached his 34th year of being at North, but he’s only been teaching for a little over 20 years. He started assistant coaching for track and field in 1989, then swimming, and finally started his teaching career in 2001. I had asked Fisher why he wanted to teach, and this is what he said, “I actually volunteered for it. A previous teacher retired and wanted me to take over the class she was teaching, so I got a degree in Psychology and began teaching. Been here ever since.” Sounds a little spontaneous.
Although he has taught Psychology for many years here, Fish does wonder what it would be like to teach different classes. “I have a U.S History class now, and I did teach World History, I just really like Social Studies. In college, I had to decide from English and Social Studies – so I wonder how it would be if I taught an English class, but I have enjoyed teaching Social Studies,” Fisher said. I mean, after over 20 years of teaching of the same subject, who wouldn’t want to know how it would be to teach a different subject?
This man has so many funny stories to tell. It’s pretty easy to get him off topic and tell a short story about his years in Fargo Public Schools during class. One story I remember is when he used to host study hall years ago. So, what happened is that Fisher didn’t know that study hall wasn’t supposed to grade them. One day, he accidentally gave all the students an ‘A’ in the class, which led to him getting in trouble and no longer being allowed to do study halls. He’s such a silly man.
Fisher’s bestie or ‘co-pet owners of brother dogs’ (A.K.A two dogs from the same litter), Kristopher Dougherty – the Modern U.S History and Philosophy teacher – admitted that he will miss Fisher. “It’s going to be pretty sad for our department. I mean, he’s been here for a while, but we’ve all used him at different times to help us out and to make us better – we’ll miss having him here,” said Doughtery, “Our [Social Studies] department gets along pretty well, we all do. We have him to thank for that and he just kinda smooths things over.”
Fisher’s leave is really a loss for the department as well as the school as a whole, as he’ll have plenty of people who’re going to miss him.
I had a curiosity about how much Fisher will be missed. So, I did an interview with one of his most devoted students, sophomore Daisy Klokstad. “I think Fisher is definitely one of those teachers who you can tell enjoys his job, for his job. He has a mind of keeping school fun and not making it seem like it’s a boring prison,” said Klokstad, “Which is what I think most kids think it is, but Fish is just good at getting on little rambles and keeping it interesting.”
Now, we say goodbye to North’s most beloved psychology teacher. Some good news is that Fisher will continue to coach swimming so he isn’t totally gone, and you might see him on his bike or around the town. Here is Fisher’s final message to the students: “If you’re a good person and work hard, things will work out.”