Kristine Marie Sandy

Kristine Marie Sandy, of rural Coon Valley, Wis., a woman of great heart and intellect, died Thursday, Dec. 22, 2022, of complications due to endocarditis, at Gundersen Medical Center in La Crosse. She was 60.

Kris spent her last days surrounded by the family she loved and sustained, and who loved and sustained her.

Scholar and teacher, feminist and philosopher, Kris was born Nov. 26, 1962, in Prairie du Chien, Wis., the first child of Margiline and David Sandy. She grew up on a dairy farm along Sugar Creek in Crawford County, Wis., working alongside her grandparents, parents, and siblings.

Kris was a 1981 graduate of Seneca (Wis.) High School, where she was an excellent student and an outstanding volleyball, basketball, and track athlete. She received her bachelor’s degree at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse in 1990, with majors in philosophy and history, and a minor in English. She lived in Nashville in 1990 and 1991, studying philosophy at Vanderbilt University. She received a master’s degree in education at UW-La Crosse in 1998.

Throughout her higher education, Kris supported herself, and eventually her budding family, with restaurant jobs, most notably behind the bar at Piggy’s on Front at its old location on the riverfront in La Crosse.

After starting her teaching career at Blair-Taylor (Wis.) High School in 1998, Kris taught English at La Crescent (Minn.) High School from 2001 to 2020. Her innovative curriculum at La Crescent included such courses as the History of Ideas, Film and Literature, and Ethics. She introduced elements of informal and formal logic to the junior English curriculum. She forged a relationship with the University of Minnesota on behalf of ISD 300, affording dozens and dozens of La Crescent students the opportunity to gain college English credits while still in high school. She especially enjoyed working with art and band teachers in the Perpich Arts Integration Network of Teachers, merging such texts as John Dos Passos’ “The Big Money,” Albert Camus’ “The Stranger,” Dante’s “Inferno,” and Robert Persig’s “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” with visual arts and music projects. She was the school’s English Department chair for 12 years. Kris was a thoroughgoing prescriptivist in matters of grammar and usage, but her husband liked to think his descriptivist ways were starting to make inroads with her on such matters. Kris also taught American government, advanced placement U.S. history, sociology, and economics over the years.

Kris, whose love of literature was rivaled only by her love of teaching, mentored student teachers from UW-La Crosse, Viterbo University in La Crosse, Winona (Minn.) State University, Saint Mary’s University in Winona, and Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, over the course of 15 years.

As committed as Kris was to academics, she might be best remembered by some of her students for creating a haven, in her over-sized and lavishly decorated and furnished classroom, for learning and exploration beyond the narrow gauge measured by standardized testing. She was the founding adviser of La Crescent High School’s Gay Straight Alliance, or GSA, and its Women’s Studies Group. She was La Crescent’s forensics coach for 15 years, including two years in which she won Excellence in Speech awards in recognition of her teams’ high number of participants and excellent performances at Wisconsin’s statewide forensics meet. She coached the Knowledge Bowl team for a few years and coordinated Student of the Month recognition for several. Kris treasured the relationships she forged with the many students who worked with her as teacher assistants over the years. She was a longtime National Honor Society adviser, and she enjoyed and took pride in her NHS students’ many community service projects. Kris was named teacher of the year in 2013, and she was greatly honored to have twice been La Crescent High School’s commencement speaker.

Kris is survived by her husband of 32 years, Marc Wehrs; daughters Avery Emma Sandy Wehrs, of Pittsburgh, and Helena Florence Sandy Wehrs and Lilith Catherine Sandy Wehrs, both of Madison, Wis.; sons Henry David Sandy Wehrs (Aisha Coursen), of Milwaukee, and Augustus Frederic Sandy Wehrs, of Madison; sisters Kathy Sandy (Steve Lovrich) of Onalaska, Wis., Katherine Sandy of Stoddard, Wis., Suzanne Lindner (Bob) of La Crosse, and Diane Sandy (Mike Senn), of Onalaska; a brother, David Sandy (Brandy), of Ferryville, Wis.; Kristine’s mother, Margiline Akins, of Gays Mills, Wis.; her father, David Sandy (Karen Korando), of Ferryville; a huge extended family of aunts and uncles, cousins and in-laws; and a host of friends, colleagues, and students. She is further survived by three influential mentors: philosopher Kenn Maly, and historians Jim Parker and Bill Pemberton. Another mentor, history professor Bill Vettes, whose unflinching intellectual honesty she admired and whose brutal frankness she often matched, preceded her in death.

Kris encountered many health challenges during her too-short life, several of which were life-threatening. She invariably faced them with inspiring courage and determination. She was deeply touched by the love and kindness she invariably received from family, friends, students, and colleagues. Friend and colleague Nicole Greener made Kristine’s denouement at La Crescent High School bearable, and Kris found in her friends in the recovery community much love, support, and solace during these past two very difficult years.

Kris leaves in her five children — and in her many hundreds of high school English students — a remarkable legacy. They were sources of immense joy and pride. Her life will be celebrated with a visitation from 3 to 6 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 7, 2023, at Schumacher-Kish Funeral and Cremation Services, 200 West Ave. S., La Crosse. There will be a brief time for sharing remembrances of Kris at 4:30 p.m.

In lieu of flowers, the family suggests a donation to the UW-La Crosse Foundation for a scholarship for first-generation college students being established in her name.