The Wagner Community School has hired first year teacher, Megan Zephier to teach high school art. Megan is originally from the Wagner area. She attended Dakota State University (DSU) to earn double bachelor’s degrees in Production Animation: Digital Media and Design and Computer Game Design. Even though she did not originally go to college for teaching, Megan is hoping in her classroom to help foster the love of art in her students and help them reach their full potential in the art field.

Before taking the position at WCS, Megan had been doing a bit of job hopping. She was in Eugene, OR at the end of 2023 and decided that the area was just not a good fit for her which prompted her to move back to the Wagner area. Megan had previously been working at Buche’s Head Quarters in Wagner as an accountant before transitioning to the Gus Stop in Pickstown when the position at WCS opened up.

Megan is very excited to see all the talent that the students are going to be bringing to her classroom. She hopes to help them build good art foundations in order for them to continue their art skills once they leave WCS. Megan cannot wait to show the students some new and interesting skills and techniques that she learned during her college art classes. Megan has two main goals for the 2024-2025 school year. The first being to build a good relationship with her students and show them that anyone can do art and that “good art” is subjective to the viewer, not a measure of their skills. The second goal is to help build students’ confidence up within their own art skills and hopefully teach them skills to continue their art outside of her classroom. With this being Megan’s first year in any classroom, she will not be holding any student advisory or coaching positions at WCS. She wants to be able to get her feet under her and make sure that her classroom is at the level that she needs it to be for her students before trying to put anything else on her work plate.

Megan is the daughter of WCS teachers, Burgess and Jenny Zephier. Burgess is a middle school teacher and Jenny teaches high school math. Megan has one fur baby, a cat named Jarvis. In her free time, Megan enjoys binge watching TV series on Netflix, Hulu, etc. She is also a bit of a gamer and has friends from across the United States and enjoys getting on the Discord app and gaming together with them. Megan’s favorite TV series is “The Nanny” which she has watched many times. One of the biggest items on Megan’s bucket list is to take a train ride on the Orient Express, which runs from Paris to Venice traveling through the Swiss Alps.

Congratulations on your new position as high school art teacher Megan!