Nicole Armstrong comes home to teach at Rainy River High School

By Ken Johnston
Editor

Rainy River High School has a new teacher/athletic director.... well sort of new!
Nicole Armstrong is a 1987 graduate of RRHS and has now returned to her home town to teach.
Armstrong (nee Medwechuk) married her high school sweetheart, Danny Armstrong, and the pair lived the past 20 years or so in Thunder Bay where Danny worked on Canadian National Railroad.
Nicole attended Lakehead University in 1988 and in 1993 obtained her degree in Physical Education. Between being a mother of three and a wife she managed to find time to go back to school and get her teaching degree in the late 90s. She did her student teaching in Rainy River but then returned to Thunder Bay where she taught the last several years.
While she admits they never expected to return here except for maybe when they retired, now being back here they love it. “In Thunder Bay, we never just dropped in on people. Here it happens all the time. We love it!”
Two of their kids are attending Riverview school and their oldest is attending college in Thunder Bay.
Danny has been working out of Fort Frances on the rails and the couple has rented a place in Rainy River for now.
Nicole said it is really neat to be back at the school teaching and that while it is a bit different, so much is familiar. Many of the students’ parents are people she grew up with so while the kids seem a bit familiar, once she connects them with their parents many things seem even more familiar.
She is teaching three classes at RRHS, two biologies and a student success. She has also taken over the Athletic Director’s job from Guy Arpin and is coaching a volleyball team at the school.
She says her family loves outdoor activities like camping and that since returning she has rediscovered how much she loves fishing.
“I feel like it as if we never left and all the years I was gone I always referred to trips back here as ‘going home’!” said Nicole.