By Christopher Johnson
This year’s Irish Festival congratulates Bruce Hales as the people’s choice for Grand Marshal. A lifelong Clare native, the role came as a surprise to the now retired educator.
Bruce is widely known for his time at Clare Middle School, where he taught multiple subjects such as PE, Science, English and Social Studies. The latter would become iconic for most of his career. A true academic chameleon and a favorite for many until his retirement in 2016.
“I was really a fill-in teacher,” he says. “Wherever they needed me, that’s where I taught.”
Hales guided his students through what may be the most pivotal year of public schooling. Eighth grade occupies a unique threshold as the last year of middle school. Where students are no longer quite children but not yet the high schoolers they’re about to become.
As a social studies teacher, Hales met them at that crossover. Offering not just lessons in history and civics but a model of how to carry yourself with confidence and humor into whatever comes next. Many former students carry warm memories with Hales and his classroom. This space was one of the last familiar environments before the big leap into uncharted territory.
This proves true also for his role as master of ceremonies for the Gateway Community Band. One that Hales describes as an atmosphere where music serves as an outlet for both casual players and those who took their instrument more seriously than others. The goal was to make music accessible to anybody with a curiosity or itch to perform. Hales nurtured and honored this role for two decades.
Now, the community would like to recognize his accomplishments with a festive thanks, placing him as a key symbol for this year’s Irish Fest.
“The only part of the parade I’ve really done is standing on the sidewalk with my grandkids, picking up candy,” Hales recalls. “A few times, years ago, teachers had a float and we rode the float. But otherwise, I’ve mostly been a spectator for a lot of it.”
Before becoming a fixture in Clare classrooms, Hales got his start in Midland County.
Fresh out of CMU with a major in Science, he was hired at Meridian Elementary in 1976 as an educator for the Sanford area. Where he taught sixth grade in a self-contained classroom.
This style of teaching involves a single teacher who guides the same students through every subject rather than rotating them between specialists. A year in, shifting enrollment moved him across the lake to Sanford Elementary, where he continued much of the same work.
The path to Clare, as Hales tells it, was less a career move than a small-town coincidence. A few colleagues had apparently mentioned his name to the right people, and word reached the Clare superintendent that Hales might be worth a conversation. What followed was unusual, as his own principal at Sanford essentially brokered the transfer, telling Hales plainly that if he’d rather raise his family in Clare, the door was open.
“Would you rather raise your family and teach in Clare, or would you rather be in Sanford?” Hales recalled being asked. The answer came easily. Within a day, it was settled.
For his first few years in Clare, job security was anything but guaranteed. Hales rode what he calls the “pink slip bubble”. Which was a spring ritual in which a handful of teachers received provisional termination notices driven by state funding uncertainty, with no guarantee of being called back in the fall. He was lucky, he says. It worked out.
He went on to spend 38 years at Clare Public Schools.
“I wanted to be a good teacher,” he said. “I patterned myself after good teachers that I had—Forrest Meek, excellent teacher, good mentor. John Wolf. Roger Fultz. They were just good teachers. I modeled my ability and my classroom, after what I learned from those men. And I think it worked out well. I know I gave it my all.”
Long before his involvement with the Gateway Community Band, Hales was finding his footing on a stage of a different kind during his time as a student at Clare. He sang in the choir all four years and landed roles in three high school musicals with support from Forrest Meek and his wife. As a freshman, he landed a background part in “Finian’s Rainbow”. His sophomore year, he moved into the lead role as Curly McLain in “Oklahoma. During his junior year, Hales pulled leading man again as Harold Hill in “The Music Man”. The experience, he says, shaped something that would serve him for decades.
“It had a lot to do with my confidence on a stage,” he said.
That confidence found a natural home with the Gateway musicians, where Hales has served as MC for 21 years. For the musicians, the hard work happens with instruments in hand. Bruce walks out alone with a microphone. His instrument is the oldest, first, and most natural musical instrument of all: his voice. Something his students cite with much reverence.
“Once you’re done with high school, most people throw their instrument away or sell it, and that’s it. But with a community band, anybody can join. You have an instrument, you come and sit in. We play one day a week, do four or five concerts. It gives us a group, it gives us a focus. It really is a very good thing for the musicians.”
Beyond his career, Bruce has been an avid biker since the age of 12. That was when his father brough home a red Honda 65cc, and Bruce became immediately hooked. This affinity for the Honda family of bikes continued his entire life, and he is always quick to seize an opportunity to hit the road. He describes the Upper Peninsula as his personal sanctuary for optimal riding and escapism.
“The UP is my favorite place to relax,” he says with a smile. “Nothing fast or overbearing. We just ride and take it all in.”
His other interests include bird watching, camping and reading for at least one hour a day. Something he describes as new and special, as during his time as a teacher, much of his relationship with books was for work and less so for pleasure. He very much enjoys the reversal.
As for this year’s Irish Festival, Mr. Hales is just happy to be involved in drawing as much appreciation to the Clare community as possible. That, and representing a vibrant atmosphere that he is continually proud to call home.
“It’s a great way to combine honoring this town’s Irish roots and focus our energies at the end of a long winter,” he says. “The town fills up with people that grew up here and others that have learned to celebrate each year with overwhelming green fun!”
