Barry Fountain remembers a moment early in his teaching career when he was working in Federal Way that crystallized his teaching philosophy.

“Alex was having a terrible day and I was too young to notice,” Fountain said. “I asked him what was wrong and he became emotional. I asked him if he wanted to go into the hall.”

Fountain got his class set up with an assignment then stepped out into the hall.

The young man was struggling with problems at home and “he needed one adult, that was me, to care. It was the day I learned that kids don’t care what you teach them until you teach them that you care. I was very young and I really believed what I was doing in social studies was what had to be done.”

Fountain has retired after 36 years of teaching, with 26 at Tahoma High.

On the last day of school he was honored by Tahoma High staff members with awards for Teaching Excellence and Professionalism but Fountain deflects the credit to the lesson he learned from Alex and every other student he’s had over the years.

“It exemplifies the kind of teacher he is and the kind of fun he brings to the classroom,” Tahoma High principal Terry Duty said. “You don’t replace Barry Fountain. He’s an icon and a leader.”

In fact, Fountain is so well loved by his students, one of them started a “Barry Fountain Fan Club” profile on Facebook, which has nearly 600 members and post after post of memories of his classes, fond, funny and reflective.

Fountain was also recognized during Maple Valley Days as Educator of the Year.

When he arrived at Tahoma High in 1983, he was the principal, overseeing 950 students.

After five years heading the school, Fountain decided to step back into teaching so he could scale back his hours and spend more time with his two daughters who were in fifth grade and kindergarten at the time.

So he took on traffic safety education and social studies. Fountain believes that teaching has been beneficial for him and “I feel like like I’m getting younger” since he went back to teaching.

In recent years he worked in the high school’s Endeavor program, teaching in an integrated curriculum of science, language arts and social studies to sophomores.

“In Endeavor the three teachers have a firm belief in the idea the students develop their own positions based on their filters,” Fountain said. “Most important, you want them to develop the skill of listening with understanding and empathy. That’s what will carry our culture into the future.”

This year the students started off with a prompt on stem cell research. They learned about the science and prepared to write a paper on it in language arts while Fountain worked with the students as they discussed the ethical and moral issues on the topic.

Initially the idea of writing a paper on the subject seemed daunting, Fountain said, but “by the time the kids need to write a paper they’re chomping at the bit.”

And that’s a victory, Fountain said.

This is what kept Fountain coming back year after year despite having officially retired in 2003.

“There is something special about Tahoma,” he said. “Terry and the school board asked me to come back and I said ‘Yes’ in a second and I have been doing that every year for six years.”

This year, though, Fountain knows it’s time for him to walk away and finally retire.

“This is very bittersweet. I love what I do,” Fountain said. “It would not be right for me to be working here and it meant someone didn’t have a job. Guys like me need to step aside … especially in these economic times.”

Despite that, Fountain explained, he has had a wonderful career and “I’ve been given a gift most don’t get.”

“I have felt all this while that it’s been a real honor to work in the Tahoma School District,” he said. “What I am is not my doing, what I am is a result of the impact of my colleagues, administrators and my students. I don’t think I could have done what I did for 36 years if it weren’t for the kids.”