Thursday, March 28, 2024

With racing skill, GHS’ Richeson may be coolest teacher – and dad – ever

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Just as Wade Clark prayed about whether he should leave his post-military position teaching small engine technology at Granbury High School to serve as the school district’s new security director, Matt Richeson prayed about whether he should be the one to replace him.

After all, he had zero teaching experience.

That fact really hit home for Richeson when he filled out an online application after asking God to not let him get the job if he wasn’t the right fit. He was stymied in progressing through the application process when he didn’t have the appropriate documents to attach.

Not knowing what else to do, Richeson attached a photo of himself working on a race car at one of the many racing events he has attended with his son, Wyatt.

Under Richeson’s tutelage, the 15-year-old sophomore has racked up racing championships.

If a picture speaks a thousand words, the one submitted by Richeson spoke loudly to school district officials.

Richeson was contacted for an interview and then, to his surprise, he was offered the job. He quit his position repairing dialysis machines for a medical company.

The apprehensive new teacher started the school year on Tuesday, Aug. 16 with almost every seat filled for every class period.

Richeson’s wife Brandi teaches fifth grade math and science at Oak Woods School. She has been with the GISD for about eight of the 20-plus years she has been teaching, according to her husband.

Richeson said that every time a position would open up in the district’s maintenance department or in the Automotive Division of the GHS Career and Technical Education program, his wife would encourage him to apply. He never did, though, until Clark’s spot opened up this summer.

“She thinks I’m going to be good at this, and I’m hoping I am,” Richeson said. “I think it will be rewarding.”

The reason Richeson thinks it will be rewarding is because he might be able to have a positive impact on the lives of students. He was once a “troubled kid” for whom teachers made a difference.

Richeson, who grew up in the San Marcos area, explained that he lost interest in school and skipped classes frequently when he attended Jack C. Hays High School in Buda. He never participated in sports because his family lived out in the country, both of his parents held jobs outside the home, and when he was 12, they divorced.

He stated that although he was never a particularly bad kid, he would sometimes act out a bit in class. When his ag teachers heard about it, they pulled him aside and gave him a talking to even though the misbehavior had not occurred in their classroom.

“The ag teachers were kind of like my coaches,” Richeson said.

Their intervention, coupled with Richeson’s interest in shop class, kept him going long enough to graduate, even though he was far more interested in working with his hands than in academics.

Even as a young boy, Richeson was intrigued by mechanics and wanted to understand how engines worked. He would ask his dad to bring home old lawnmowers from the side of the road.

“I would tear them apart and work on them,” he said. “And I was probably 10 years old before I got one of them to run again, but I’d actually start fixing them and even give some of the lawnmowers to other neighbors.”

By the time he was 12, he had go-karts and even a motorcycle that he maintained.

“Being in the country in the middle of nowhere, you either learned to fix it or you didn’t get to use it,” Richeson said. “So, I learned to work on things at a very young age and I’ve been playing with them ever since.”

As a kid, Richeson had an interest in racing, but didn’t take up the hobby.

His son, though, well, that’s a different story. 

FAMILY AFFAIR

When talking about his wife and son or telling the story behind each of the many photos of the times they have shared, Richeson becomes emotional.

That might be due, at least partly, to the fact that he almost lost them.

Brandi had a difficult pregnancy, Richeson said. When Wyatt was a newborn, he spent two weeks in the NICU and Brandi spent even longer than that in ICU.

Richeson takes nothing for granted. A devoted member of StoneWater Church, he strives to be the best Christian husband and father he can be.

“My family is everything,” he said.

The 42-year-old has thrown all he’s got into being Wyatt’s dad.

“It was a real hard pregnancy, so we decided we weren’t going to have any more (children),” Richeson said. “He’s my one and only shot at it.”

When Wyatt was six, his parents bought him an Outlaw Dirt Kart, which runs on an oval dirt track. At age seven, the child competed in his first race.

“We never won a race with it, not once,” Richeson said of his and Wyatt’s first car, adding that at that time he didn’t know much about racing.

“I can fix a motor, but I didn’t know how to build one because racing is a lot different,” he said.

Racing became a hobby that father and son learned together, with mom taking lots of pictures.

“It’s not even about racing for me. It’s about my kid. It’s about my family,” Richeson said. “It’s a family affair.”

One year to the day after little Wyatt competed in his first race, the boy — driving a new car with fire retardant safety gear and decked out head to toe in fire retardant clothing — competed again in the same national competition at KAM Kartway in the Wise County town of Rhome.

He won second place Pure Stock Champion.

Richeson chokes up over that, too.

In the years since, there have been other cars and other wins, including in competitions with adults.

“The cool thing about it is, ever since we lost every race the first year, we have been in the championship every single year since,” Richeson said. “(Wyatt) was rookie of the year last year in the Lone Star Dwarf Car Club.”

Wyatt has been driving for Yount Motorsports this year and has long been sponsored by Samantha Redus and Yuri Tulchin of Granbury-based Tankersley Automotive, Richeson said.

After his son’s first triumph, Richeson told him that he would keep him in racing as long as he did well in school. Not everyone can be a NASCAR driver and while Wyatt’s parents encourage him to aim high, they want him to have the tools he needs for a career outside of racing.

“Me and his mother drive that one home hard,” Richeson said. “You’ve got to have an education.”

Wyatt is a straight-A student and is taking dual-credit classes, Richeson said. He’s in his father’s seventh period class.

Later in the school year, when Richeson’s students will take apart and then reassemble a small engine, he will enlist his son to help anyone who needs assistance.

Richeson knows that he, too, will receive the help he needs as he embarks on a new career. He said that his new colleagues have been very supportive, and he feels confident that they will give him advice and guidance.

“They have a lot of experience and they’re not going to let me fail,” he said. “Like I say with everything I do, it’s about teamwork.”