As the school year draws to a close and the C.M. Russell High School community says goodbye to Dick Kloppel, its principal of 15 years, appreciation is shown by both students and teachers alike.

For Alex Rosenleaf, who has spent six of his seven teaching years at CMR, it is an unfortunate but understood occasion.

“Oh yeah,” Rosenleaf said. “He’s been a big part of my time here [at CMR], and I’ll be sad to see him leave. But I know Parsons will do a good job in his place. Change is good.”

Since Fall 2009, Rosenleaf has been teaching U.S. history, and he hopes to start an online government class next year. He also wishes to teach a class about human rights sometime in the future. Along with the online U.S. History class he will be teaching over the summer, Rosenleaf has quite a bit of work laid out for himself. Aside from the summer trip to the family cabin that is, where he and his family will be taking their vacation.

Although Rosenleaf is well experienced and established in his place at the front of a classroom, he, like many others, had different dreams as a kid.

Children often had grand ideas of who they want to be when they grow up, and when he was younger Rosenleaf wanted to be Batman. For a while. But with both of his parents being teachers he knew he also wanted to teach one day.

“When I was in high school my favorite classes were my choir and history classes, always,” Rosenleaf said. “I decided I wanted to follow in my teachers’ footsteps and make history exciting.”

In addition to history, Rosenleaf said he wanted to teach choir as well, but he discovered getting a degree in music was more difficult than he thought.

“It involves learning to play every instrument known to man. Well, almost every instrument. Close.”