In the spring of 2024, Callie Zenner was preparing for a big change.
Her daughter, Erica, was a senior at Nezperce High School. Zenner was getting ready for graduation, teaching, coaching basketball, coordinating schedules as the school’s athletic director and advising student government.
“Small town schools, you wear a lot of different hats,” Zenner said.
Her daughter’s senior trip to Jackson Hole and the Tetons was the pause Zenner needed to prepare for her summer and future as an empty nester.
The trip went fine but when she got home, Zenner, 44, couldn’t shake a deep exhaustion and some weird bruises that showed up.
So she went to her primary care doctor who ran some bloodwork. The next day her doctor called and asked if her husband was home.
“I knew right away that something was wrong,” Zenner said.
Less than 48 hours later, Zenner was in Seattle after a diagnosis of acute promyelocytic leukemia and a life flight for specialized treatment.
Now, Zenner is finishing her first year in remission and is back at school.
The biggest lesson learned is one Zenner now shares with her students: “You can do hard things.”
Small town school strong
As a fourth-generation Nezperce graduate, Zenner loved her community so much that she wanted to ensure the next generation had a similar experience.
“I loved going to school here. It’s a great small town community that takes care of its kids,” Zenner said.
She graduated from high school in 2000 and started an elementary teaching degree. But plans changed, and she went into medical administration.
She got married, had two kids and quickly grew to resent how much time her job took away from her family. She went back to Lewis-Clark State College to get her teaching degree in 2010.
“A lot of people said that it would be hard, but for me it really wasn’t because it was something I knew I wanted to do,” Zenner said.
A fiend for sarcasm and a good joke, Zenner knew she wanted to teach upper elementary and early middle school. Kids that age have a drive to learn, but understand her sarcastic ways, Zenner said.
As time passed, Zenner took on more responsibility, adding coaching, advising and the athletic director role to her list of duties.
Life with leukemia
Zenner’s doctors estimate she had her cancer for about a month before her diagnosis.
“It’s a very aggressive form of acute leukemia,” Zenner said.
If she hadn’t been diagnosed so early, doctors estimate, the cancer would have killed her in six months. The first days and weeks after her diagnosis were a blur.
“You hear the words cancer and leukemia and life flight, and you either do this or you’re going to die,” Zenner said. “And your brain kind of stops processing at that point.”
She remembers how the words of her husband, Scott, anchored her through those days.
“You’ve got this,” he told her. “You absolutely crush everything you set your mind to. You’re going to kick leukemia’s ass.”
By the Fourth of July, Zenner watched fireworks from her Seattle hospital room, thinking about her treatment plan. She spent the next five weeks in Seattle doing intensive treatment before heading home, where she did chemo five days a week for the next eight months at St. Joe’s Regional Medical Center in Lewiston.
“I knew very early in July that I wouldn’t go back to school,” Zenner said. “There was no way I could teach.”
It was “heartbreaking” to give up her classroom, she said.
“In a way it was a blessing that I had chemotherapy so often because I really had to focus on that,” Zenner said. “So I couldn’t really miss everything.”
By the end of February 2025, Zenner’s scans were all clear. But she had two years of intensive monitoring and recovery ahead.
She spent the spring resting, but by May, she was ready to commit to teaching this school year.
“I really love watching the kids grow and learn and become young adults,” Zenner said.
Zenner gave up a few things, like coaching and her athletic director position, turning her focus to recovery and the classroom.
“This year was incredible,” Zenner said.
Cancer gave Zenner a new perspective on life. The little classroom annoyances don’t bother her anymore. Instead, she focuses on the big picture.
It has impacted her students, too. When they say, “I can’t do this, it’s too hard,” Zenner responds with “Well, let’s talk about what hard really looks like.”
Kairys Grant, a senior who was close to Zenner, said she learned a lot from her teacher’s journey.
“You can go through hard things and come out better,” Grant said. “She showed me what resilience means.”
With her cancer still at bay, Zenner is looking forward to a summer in her garden and at the river before returning for another school year.
Callie Zenner
Years teaching: 16
Grades taught: Kindergarten, first, third, middle and high school
What was your best year in teaching and why? This year, I not only proved to myself that I could still do it, but I was able to show the kids just how hard life can be and that you can keep going no matter what.
What do you wish the community knew about teaching? Just how hard it is. We have a great community, but there’s still this overarching issue of parents wanting to be too involved in education almost. Teaching is hard, and we love your kids. Let us teach your kids.
