Monday, September 22, 2025
I reminisce about Scott Hawbaker:
Working across the hall from Scott for many of my earliest teaching years at the end of the last century was a blessing having him as a reliable neighbor, mentor, and friend throughout the lion's share of my teaching career at Depew Middle School. He quietly led all of us through many, many changes in "technology" until his retirement. He was a skilled, brilliant, understanding, and patient colleague & teacher of Middle School students, Industrial Arts, Systems, Problem Analysis & Solutions Development with a strong emphasis on reducing, reusing, and recycling resources.
Scott never hesitated to gently & patiently share his knowledge, analytical thinking, practical skills, and sensibilities with me as a new teacher. He was the go-to expert for anything remotely technical from using a band saw safely, fixing a scanner to read & score exam cards, to understanding all the possibilities of using a computer lab with students.
Scott didn't just fix things for other people like me, but also taught them the process to fix it themselves for the next time - and there always was a next time - to be in a similar situation.
Scott's “well seasoned” coffee mug in the faculty room was always easily recognizable as belonging to only him!
During the first couple of years of my teaching at Depew Middle School, we were also neighbors when he & Diane lived on their fabulous homestead at the corner of Erie Street in Lancaster. His extensive knowledge and passion for all things trains & locomotives was legendary in this area as well as his ambition to buy a historic locomotive and restore it completely on his own!
I don't think there was anyone who knew Scott who was not delighted or surprised learning he was a
Ferroequinologist (A more academic or formal term, literally meaning "study of iron horses," for someone interested in rail transport systems). To use a modern comparison: he had the diverse and advanced thinking & tinkering power of a ‘Young Sheldon Cooper.’ Scott was able to see our technological future through understanding the past technological developments of centuries that came before.
The horn on his truck Depew Middle School students & teachers fondly remember at the end of a week:
http://www.trainweb.org/wnyrhs/minilesliesu3l.wav
This is a train website that Scott hosted and built:
http://www.trainweb.org/wnyrhs/whistleblow04.htm
https://www.steamlocomotive.info/F61999.cfm
With fond memories & a heavy heart,
Danielle Cobb
