After the Bell with CCHS Staffulty Member Tye Turner

Have you ever wondered what teachers and school staff do when they are not at school?  We decided to find out!  

This is one in a series of stories about some of Central Catholic’s faculty and staff members and what they like to do after the bell rings at the end of the day.  Some have surprising hobbies, others have creative talents.  With this series, we hope to shine a spotlight on the special people who work with our students every day!

Building Sets and Building Futures

Prior to joining the staff as a math and science teacher, Tye Turner worked for 18 years at 84 Lumber in Toledo as a sales associate and then as a manager at the store in Oregon, Ohio.  His job required him to understand blueprint estimating and general construction, but most of his actual carpentry experience was theoretical.

Despite his limited experience, Tye did not hesitate to step up when he was asked to use his modest skills to help build the set for Central Catholic’s 96th musical, The Little Mermaid, last spring.  “Angela Mills [the musical director] is an awesome person, and when she asked me out of desperation, I could not say no,” Tye recalled.  

Tye built the set in three days over spring break, working seven to nine hours each day.  “The physical labor was actually quite taxing,” he recalled.  “Every evening I went home and was beat.  I led the project, but it was really a team effort.  Two dads were instrumental in bringing everything together - Ty Satler and Tyler Smotherman.  We jokingly called ourselves the three Tys.”

Tye had never built a set before, and his building experience was limited to household projects and helping friends build decks or sheds.  “Certainly, 84 Lumber did a great job of training employees in the building process,” he said.  “I used a lot of this knowledge to put pieces together for the musical set and to calculate the amount of material we would need.  The three Tys worked very well together, and I was proud of the end result.  The ship that we built for the set was the most challenging and most rewarding.  We worked for days to figure out how to have the left and right sections of the boat meet in the middle and then be secure and safe for students to perform on.  Many iterations later we found a way that worked smoothly, quickly, and safely.”

When Tye became a teacher, he had no idea he would end up calling on some of the skills he had learned in his previous job.  The 84 Lumber store that he managed closed in 2006, and the only way he could continue to manage was if he moved.  He had a wife and newborn at home and felt that wasn’t a realistic option.  Many of his friends told him he would be a good teacher, so he decided to take classes part time at Lourdes University while he continued working for the company in another capacity.  It took him nine years to earn his teaching license.

Tye started teaching at CCHS in December 2016, and he has taught Integrated Math, Algebra 1, Biology, Anatomy, Forensic Science, Integrated Physical Science, and Zoology in the years since then.

When asked if he would ever work on a musical set again, he said he would like to do so as a way to help students learn the craft.  “In the future I plan to take a voluntary role, helping when needed and really trying to find students that would benefit from learning how to use a drill or a saw, or how to assemble and calculate materials for a project,” he explained.  “I would love to work in this capacity to help our students explore possibilities for their future.”