Mike Lathrop may not have always wanted to be a physics teacher but it certainly fits his interests.

Lathrop has always been “obsessed with knowing the truth, what is true and what isn’t true,” he said.

Before Lathrop was a teacher, he tried many things. He worked as an architectural hardware consultant. Along with a company who went out of business but then  lost his job.  

Someone found a job opening at CMR for him, but Lathrop said, “No way!” He said he didn’t want to be a teacher, so he found different odd jobs to pass the time.

“Two years after, I became so poor,” he said, so he went to college to study physical science, chemistry, mathematics, and broad field science.

Today he loves his job. Lathrop’s classroom is decorated with a lot of objects. He keeps a collection of rubber duckies and Mr. Potato Head. He had a catalog called Oriental Trading “in which there was rubber duckies with graduation caps that he said he got for a steal.

The Mr. Potato Heads were from his many years as a Key Club advisor. The director of the March of Dimes (he was at a table at the program he went to) sent him a Mr. Potato Head after Lathrop told him his parents would never buy him one as a kid.

He has continued to extend his collection with Mr. Potato Heads like Darth Vader Potato Head.

He bought them to give to his all graduating seniors. For several years, “I would give this to all my graduating seniors, a little graduation duck.”

One year they were out of stock of graduation ducks. So he ordered an assortment pack of ducks to give to his seniors. He no longer gives the ducks because students mistreated them — tearing them up and leaving a mess for others to clean up.