A fishing guide once gave John P. Cook this secret to happiness: Love your work, love your community, love your family.

2-5-10

A fishing guide once gave John P. Cook this secret to happiness:  Love your work, love your community, love your family.
“That’s my philosophy of life,” said Cook as he prepares to retire after 25 years as Center Street School principal.  “I have a great family, my job is fantastic and the community I live in is wonderful.”
So you can imagine how Cook’s decision to retire – five years in the making –was a difficult one.  Even filling out the retirement paperwork, he finds, was an emotional challenge.
“I really like what I am doing,” said the principal as he watched over second graders during recess the other day.  “You can’t script what my days are like.”
Originally from Schenectady, he received a bachelor’s in physical education from Niagara and a masters in health education from Syracuse.   He intended to be a phys-ed teacher and a football coach, but the job he was offered fresh out of school in 1970 was in health education.
He coached swimming for a period, but never football, and he never taught phys ed.
After teaching health and being an athletic trainer at West Genesee High School for two years, he joined Jefferson-Lewis BOCES as coordinator of health and drug education.   He then made his first appearance in Oneonta as a health education instructor at SUNY Oneonta for eight years.  He fell in love with the town, calling it “a wonderful place to live and raise a family.”
He was tempted away once – a six-month stint as director of athletics at Salmon River – but returned to take the Center Street job.
Cook and his wife, Nancy, a Bassett Healthcare nurse practitioner, raised four children.
His daughters followed him into education:  Caitlin Wightman teaches art at Cooperstown Elementary and Julie Lynch, special education at Riverside Elementary.
Son John is an administrator at Granite State College in New Hampshire, and Tim has just completed a master’s in Montana.
“I am proud of the sense of community I have developed at Center Street School with the students, parents and staff. We want kids to do well academically, but also socially,” Cook said about his biggest career accomplishments.
He is also proud of the staff he has built over the years saying that everyone has helped to bring programming and school community to a whole new level.