Donald & Mary Anne Draayer

Dr. Donald R. Draayer and
Mrs. Mary Anne Draayer

Don was born in 1935 on a southern Minnesota farm. Mary Anne was born in 1935 in Chicago, Illinois. Both graduated from high school in 1953.

Don attended Bethel College in St. Paul, MN, and the University of Minnesota where he graduated with highest distinction in 1957. Mary Anne attended the National College of Education, Evanston, Illinois, where she also graduated in 1957 with a BS in elementary education.

That same year both Don and Mary Anne accepted elementary teaching assignments in Battle Creek, Michigan. They married three years later in June, 1960, right after Don graduated with his MA in school administration from Western Michigan University.

The honeymoon years, 1960-64, were spent as educators in DoD schools in Japan. Don served as principal of Hamura Elementary School and supervising principal of Tachikawa Elementary and Middle Schools. Mary Anne taught elementary grades at the Tachikawa Annex School. Son Dirk was born at Tachikawa in 1962. They traveled throughout Japan by train and an old Ford car.

Leaving Japan, Don earned his doctorate from the University of Illinois and served as high school principal in the western suburbs of Chicago, followed by twenty-four years as school superintendent in Minnetonka, Minnesota. Mary Anne was a stay-at-home mom with Dirk and Dawn, and later taught nursery school children for many years. In 1990, Don was honored as National Superintendent of the Year.

Both live in Minnetonka, Minnesota. Don teaches graduate classes at the University of Minnesota and speaks around the USA for the Search Institute about positive influences (assets) children need in their lives. Both are active in the Presbyterian Church, enjoy two grandchildren, spend summers at their lake cabin in northern Minnesota, and manage the family farm in southern Minnesota.

Prepared by Don and Mary Anne Draayer,2001