Community High School

A Fond Farewell

“I’m practicing how to live without Judi Erwin,” Pam Kirchen said as she looked around the counseling office for information and test dates for the ACT’s. “You have made life doable,” Kirchen said as Erwin pointed her towards the bulletin board in the hallway.

Erwin’s last day at CHS was September 27th after nine years in the building as counseling secretary and ten years in the district before subbing. “This is like getting a divorce,” Erwin said, “Don’t forget this; don’t forget to not wear nail polish when you do diplomas because it rubs off.” Erwin said she does mostly “senior stuff,” processing applications, sending test scores. Organizing college visits, as well as inducting members into the National Honors Society and putting together graduation.

Erwin said that there is not very much around Community that has changed since she started here in 1998, except for graduation. Erwin described graduation when she started as, “horrible,” and continued, “They were going to quit having it.”

“The first year [I was here] my son was carrying all these things for graduation [to Rackham]. All these kids were sitting on the curb. My son said ‘you really want to work here Mom?’ I’ve never seen so much red, blue and orange hair in my life. Kids would swear [during their speeches]. It got to the point where the other students would be embarrassed,” Erwin said. But thanks to the work of Erwin and Community High legend Mike Mouradian, graduation has taken what Erwin called, “a complete 180.”

Today CHS’ graduation is a spectacle people look forward to every year. “I went to a family get together and someone came up and said, ‘Oh. I watch your graduation all the time,’” Erwin said, “I didn’t even know her.”

You would not need to be around CHS for long to see how valuable Erwin was to the school. “Judi has been a huge asset for me here, she’s taught me so much,” said counseling intern Jules Cobb.

Erwin transformed the counseling office into what she called, “the most fun place in the school.” Erwin says this is because everyone who works there loves the students. “Mike [Mouradian] was devoted to the kids, he won’t tell you but he was,” Erwin said.

Erwin is leaving for a myriad of reasons, but mostly so that she can have time to do what she wants to outside of school without feeling rushed. Erwin will be spending more time with her women’s group as well as her 97 year-old mother and two-and-a-half year old granddaughter. Erwin’s church asked her to be the chair of the cemetery they own. “John [Boshoven] laughs when I’m on the phone saying, ‘Move this body. It’s in the wrong plot ,’ or ‘Ok this body is going to be cremated.’ It doesn’t bother me. So it’s a good fit,” Erwin said.

Erwin said that the school has been changing a lot lately and that is a part of the reason she’s leaving. “We’re short one secretary so everyone has to do more while still staying sane,” Erwin said.

She meant to retire at the end of last year but it didn’t work out. “I was going to go last June. But when Mike took the buyout I would have left the office would have been too empty. So I agreed to stay on for a month,” Erwin said.

“Have you learned how to register people for the PSAT?” Erwin asked Cobb as Mouradian lead her out of the Counseling office. Around the corner Erwin was met by hundreds of students and staffed crammed into the second floor hallway and the music of the CHS Jazz band. “You sure have done a lot of nice graduations for us so we thought we’d do a little one for you,” Dean Peter Ways said over the crowd, as Mouradian waltzed Erwin through the crowd. After an open mic goodbye, Erwin was escorted out to a hummed rendition of Pomp and Circumstance with tears welling in her eyes.

But that was not the end of Erwin’s work. She came back from her goodbye lunch to process the seven applications CHS senior Hannah Gray made sure to get in before Erwin retired. That’s Erwin for you, working until the end.