Long-serving SW Iowa teacher remembered

“You were a great teacher, a kind human, and one undeniably strange cat,” Katie Davidson said of her late math teacher Paul Jameson.

After Jameson’s unexpected passing Dec. 20, many of his former students flocked to social media to share their fond memories of the retired Creston High School teacher.

Comments ranged from his generosity and humor to memories of Jameson as a driver’s education teacher.

Creston Community High School Bill Messerole also lauded Jameson’s generosity, specifically with students.

“When I first got here, I remember in his room he’d have two toasters, every kind of breakfast cereal a kid might want to eat. He always kept that up, he just didn’t want kids to be hungry,” Messerole said. “The other think that I think a lot of people don’t know is, he bought hundreds of hundreds of shoes for students. He was incredibly generous with both his time and his money to the students.”

It wasn’t only students that Jameson was generous with.

“I remember pre-Covid when I was subbing in Spanish 1. Down the hall, Paul Jameson, as usual, had tons of food in his classroom,” Davidson said. “He had those really good Entenmann’s chocolate donuts one day and I told him they were my favorite. The next time I subbed there was an entire box of them on my desk.”

Jameson came to Creston in 1994. He previously taught at a variety of other schools throughout Southwest Iowa, including Orient-Macksburg and Clarinda. During his more than 42 years of teaching, Jameson taught math, computer science, driver’s education and coached volleyball and basketball.

Even outside of his generosity, Jameson was a favorite with students.

“He’s not the kind of person who demanded authority. You could kind of talk to him kind of like a peer even when you were a student,” Davidson said.

She said that Jameson was also a favorite for students to TP.

“I did TP his house when I was in high school too. He was one where you knew he wasn’t going to be mad if you did it, so it was a safe house to TP,” Davidson said. “You know that it kind of made him feel special when you TPed his house. I know we weren’t the only ones, his house was covered all the time.”

Even after Jameson’s retirement in 2021, he helped with classes at the school.

“He was an exceptional classroom teacher,” Messerole said. “He helped us out this year by coming back and teaching a few courses for us. He was just a really good and gentle person.”

Jameson’s obituary can be found on Page 2A.