Les Lamkin is more than just the new language arts teacher on the GILA campus. He also loves playing music on the bass guitar.

“I’ve had a chance to play here in Galena,” he said. “I’m having more fun than I could possibly imagine.”

He enjoys it here.

“So far, I really like Galena, it’s much different than other schools I’ve taught at,” said Mr. Lamkin. “The population is small. Even though it’s a village, it doesn’t feel like a village.”

Mr. Lamkin, 55, became the new language arts teacher here at GILA at the start of the second semester. He’s bringing along with him almost a decade of teaching and substituting in a classroom.

He was born on December 19, 1958, and was born and raised in Chelan, Washington. Mr. Lamkin said Chelan’s population depends on the time of year because of the high influx of tourists. From October to April, the population is about 4,000, and from May to September the population greatly increases from 7,000 to 10,000.

“More on the busy summer weekends,” Mr. Lamkin said.

He attended all his elementary and high school years in Chelan.

Mr. Lamkin graduated from Chelan High School in 1977. He attended several different colleges. In 1999, he went to Wenatchee Valley College and got his associate’s degree and graduated in 2001.

In 2001, after going to Wenatchee Valley, he went to Central Washington University and got a bachelor’s degree in English teaching and graduated in 2003. After graduation, he went to Mercy College in New York, where he got his master’s degree in English literature. He graduated in 2011. He also attended Goddard College in Vermont, where he earned a master’s in fine arts (MFA) in creative writing.

Mr. Lamkin was an adjunct English instructor for two years at Wenatchee Valley College, where he taught English 101 (Basic Composition), English 201 (Advanced Composition), and Western Humanities from the fall of 2011 through the fall quarter of 2013.

Before teaching in a college, he was teaching high school students in rural Alaska. He taught on the North Slope in Point Lay for three years.

He has a wife and four children living in Chelan taking care of his home.

Mr. Lamkin says one of his important goals is to help high school students in Galena pass the HSGQE test.