By:  Julia Effle  –

If you scan the crowds at an LSE sporting event, there is a good chance that you’ll find English teacher Tressa TeKolste cheering on the athletes, sponsoring the cheer team, and helping with the DFA.

This is TeKolste’s fourth year as cheer coach and first year as the DFA sponsor. These responsibilities may overwhelm another sponsor, but TeKolste was born for this job.

“My family is really into sports, specifically volleyball and basketball, so I’ve spent a large majority of my life in and around competition. While I admit I’m the least athletic in my family, I still love the environment of athletics, which is why I choose to work with cheer and DFA.”

Her love for teaching though? She’d have to give some credit to teachers from her own school.

“I really liked my English and Social Studies classes. I had killer teachers for both those subjects but I also loved to learn about people and storytelling.”

TeKolste was just as involved during her own high school experience as she is now as a teacher.

“I loved my time as a cheerleader and being on the volleyball team in high school. My favorite time of day was my Study Hall period because the teacher was one of my favorites and all my friends were in the same class. We spent most of the class period chatting and building relationships with one another and our teacher. He definitely was (and is) someone I wanted to emulate in my own teaching.”

TeKolste grew up near Firth, NE and attended Norris High School. She knew most of her peers all throughout her education, so coming to LSE was a big change.

“Southeast was a different world from what I was used to. Here, where students are consolidated from so many different primary schools, people have to learn to make new friends much quicker and more efficiently than I ever had to.”

Now, in her 4th year teaching at Southeast, TeKolste says that the relationships she’s built with her colleagues and students are what sustains and inspires her.

“I love, and try not to take for granted, getting to work alongside some of my best friends and the wisest people I know. I also really enjoy working with the cheerleaders and now the DFA,” said TeKolste. “One of my favorite things in class is working towards that “aha” moment in a book where students realize a symbol or make a connection that they hadn’t before. Last spring I had an AMAZING group of 10D students who had incredible Socratic Seminar discussions. Those kinds of things always hit me in the all feels and confirm why I love my work and my students. ”