TeacherAl Bibeau, ‘a legend’ at Bethel High School, dies at 73
BETHEL — If you grew up in Bethel, the chances are good that someone — you, your brother, your mother, your uncle, your cousin, perhaps all of you — was taught by Al Bibeau.
For 46 years, Albert Bibeau taught at Bethel High School — history, English, civics, college-level sociology and psychology courses.
Every year, the Waterbury native would tell the same stories and jokes that somehow never faded in their telling. He loved telling students that he had shaken the hand of someone who had shaken the hand of John F. Kennedy, his favorite president. He wasn’t just someone who taught at Bethel High School. To many, he was the high school.
So, when Bibeau died unexpectedly on Feb. 3 at 73, the outpouring of support from students past and present was tremendous. Facebook posts and tweets filled with memories of Bibeau. The high school
had just started a new semester, and Bibeau was teaching four different classes at the time of his death.
Bibeau also taught at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury.
His classes were legendary, his former students said. Surrounded by smiling photos of John F. Kennedy and former student actress Meg Ryan, Bibeau would launch into a lesson that was packed with jokes, documentaries recorded on the VCR, and things his students called “Bibeauisms.”
He’d stand at the front of the classroom in a striped rugby shirt and thwack a yard stick on the table to add emphasis to a point he was making. No one slept in his class. And he always answered the phone with a pun:
What’s my favorite color, he’d ask as he picked up the ringing device. Yellow?
“He was an icon, a legend,” said state Rep. Raghib Allie-Brennan, D-Bethel.
Allie-Brennan, himself a Bethel High School alum, took several of Bibeau’s classes and vividly remembers his stories and uncanny ability to make any history lesson feel relevant.
From Brutus and Ceasar to “Jersey Shore” and MTV, Bibeau deftly connected with his students and made learning fun. A class with Bibeau was a rite of passage, Allie-Brennan said. “You couldn’t go in there and keep your head down and snore through class.”
When Allie-Brennan visited the school last year, he noticed his old teacher still had the same electric pencil sharpener Allie-Brennan gave him more than a decade ago. It’s name? The Raghib Memorial Pencil Sharpener.
Bibeau connected with and cared about his students. He was frequently asked to write college recommendation letters on their behalf.
When Bibeau missed school for medical reasons, said colleague Jessica Galbraith, chairwoman of the social studies department, he never wanted to answer questions about himself. He just wanted to know who was passing the class, who made what grade on a paper, what the final exam questions were.
For all his devotion to the school, Galbraith said he was even more dedicated to his wife, Jackie, and their daughter, Theresa. While outgoing and vivacious, Bibeau was deeply private, Galbraith said. But he did love to talk about his wife and daughter, and often reinforced how important family was to him.
“He treasured, more than anything, his family,” Galbraith said.
Bethel High School Principal Chris Troetti has known Bibeau for more than three decades. First as his student, then as his colleague, working alongside him at the high school. Troetti still remembers the chunky double Windsor knot ties Bibeau wore to school in the ’80s and ’90s.
“He was just one of those people that everybody loved,” Troetti said.
Always one to show up at retirement or birthday parties, Bibeau was remembered by his colleagues as someone who was the first one to know what you needed.
When Galbraith took over an introductory psychology class in 2000, Bibeau took it upon himself to photocopy — by hand — all his notes from his years teaching the course so she would have an easier time.
Perhaps it was the rugby shirts or the steel-toed boots. It could have been his insistence on watching shows like “Riverdale” to “keep up” with the kids he was teaching, or his love of the New England Patriots. There was just something about Al Bibeau that clicked with students.
“He wanted that connection, and he was willing to go the extra mile,” Galbraith said. That meant keeping up with trends, celebrities and music. But at the end of the day, Bibeau stayed true to his own quirky, funny style throughout his near half-century at the high school.
For Jennifer Dionne, Bethel High School Class of 2002, he was the teacher who guided their class through the 9/11 terrorist attacks. As Dionne was hustled from Spanish to Bibeau’s current events class, the school decided to stop broadcasting information about the attack in an effort to keep some semblance of normalcy, Dionne said.
Not Mr. Bibeau.
“I remember him, distinctly, putting on the radio and him saying, ‘Business as usual? I don’t do business as usual. A terrorist attack is not business as usual. We are not doing that,’ ” Dionne said.
Instead of carrying on with his lesson plan, Bibeau talked to the class about alQaeda and terrorism and what was going on just miles away in New York City. Dionne was terrified of what was going on, and he let the class ask questions, process and talk.
“He gave us a voice, and he gave us a venue,” Dionne said.
All these years later, she carries Bibeau’s lessons with her, applying them to her own job helping college students in need. Whether it’s talking about homelessness, poverty or the pandemic, she draws on Bibeau’s teachings to help students muddle through the world.
“You would be hard-pressed to find someone as passionate about teaching and as good a teacher as he was,” Dionne said. “Bethel High School will never be the same.”
For now, the art department has created a makeshift memorial to the teacher on the bulletin board outside of his classroom. Students have been pinning notes and memories there.
Troetti hopes they can honor his memory together in a few months.
“He’s just part of the fabric,” Galbraith said.