When Soren Rounds rolled out of Alsea headed to the University of Oregon right after graduation in 1992, he didn’t think he would ever be back. But Soren is back in Alsea dropping his son off at Alsea Pups Preschool, driving his father-in-law’s 1966 Caddy in the 2022 Homecoming Parade, and volunteering to fill an empty seat on the Alsea School Board. There is a lot of story between Then and Now.
Soren moved to town at age three with his mother, Mary Rounds, who was the beloved Alsea librarian for many years. He remembers attending a co-op preschool in an old church west of town and attending Alsea School K-12, except for when he was in Japan as an exchange student his junior year. When he was little, he would beg his mother to take him with her to work at the library when it used to be across from the Merc in the old bank building. He says he would read until his eyes got too tired to focus on the words anymore. And then he would take more books home with him!
After one year at U of O and some years working at the Buick dealership in Eugene, Soren decided to get back to school to become a pharmacist. After “jumping through many hoops,” he received a Bachelor’s of Applied Sciences from U of O and a Doctor of Pharmacy from Oregon State when he was about 30. He progressed into positions at Eugene hospitals, including as Interim Director at McKenzie-Willamette Medical Center and Clinical Pharmacist at Sacred Heart Medical Center. He and wife Aimee Hart made several trips to isolated rural communities in the highlands of Guatemala with HELPS International’s Cascade Medical Team. He also built and raced cars.
Then around age 40, he had a stroke.
After getting off the feeding tube and out of the wheelchair, learning to walk again and feed himself again, and returning to work for a few years, he and Aimee decided it was time for a simpler life in the country. “I didn’t have to think about coming back to Alsea,” he said, “It was just home. When I thought of life in the country and connecting with the land, all that is Alsea to me.”
Soren credits Alsea School with helping shape his career path in a few ways, including how to be a self-starter and how to not be a quitter. The teachers who had the biggest impact on his life were Bonnie Hill and Ron Nicholson. He sees the ongoing relationship with teachers who lived in and were active members of the Alsea community as the reason they had such an impact on him. “Not having to get to know every student at the beginning of every year meant that they knew me, and could meet me where I was as a learner,” he explained.
Because of these beloved former teachers who were also community members, teacher recruitment and retention is one of the areas he would like to direct his attention to as an Alsea School Board member. He said he was happy to volunteer for the open board seat because there is so much work that needs to be done to see the school through this time of transitions like the budget crunch, the bond project, and the superintendent search. “I have the time to do it. And it is time to give back to make sure the kids of today get what they need from the school,” he said.
A memory Soren has from Alsea school days is best told in his own words: “One time in 6th grade, I got an F in math. I turned in no homework; it was pages and pages of long division with 5-6 digits being divided by 2-4 digits, answers often containing decimals. I always got A scores on tests. It was my understanding that homework was intended to help a student learn, and if you knew the subject matter you didn't need homework. A winter break spent completing all of the homework resulted in the grade being changed to an A.
“The moral of this story is my mother telling me, as I was frustrated with the idea that I needed to do all of this useless work, that "you often have to jump through the system's hoops. It may seem like a waste of time to you, but they require it to get to the result you want." This really did stick with me, from required college classes ("Lifetime Health and Fitness" required for a 28 year old pursuing a second career in a health science and ten years of intensive martial arts experience? Ok, I guess I'll take that class if I have to) to motor sports rules (fire extinguisher must have only metal-to metal connections all the way to the final attachment point to the frame or roll cage, even though nobody in recent history has used an in-car extinguisher at that race course in decades because safety workers are staged everywhere outside with larger extinguishers).
“Long story short, a harsh lesson about jumping through hoops in middle school made me able to visualize those hoops in life and plan ahead to make them as painless as possible…I really do recall that conversation with my mom in 6th grade and have recounted it many times to explain how I get where I want to be.”
Exactly, Mom.
