Houghton Lake mourns loss of bright’ teacher

“Fun, accepting, caring, courageous, ‘we can do it,’ encouraging, inclusive, sincere, real, no airs, not afraid to try something new.”

These are words and phrases that came to mind for Houghton Lake High School Assistant Principal Sue Milner when asked to speak about teacher and friend Rob Kunik, 45, who died Feb. 1 after battling leukemia since the end of last summer.

“There has been a gap, a hole, here since he left at summer’s end,” said Milner, “something has been missing.”

Milner said Kunik could always find a way to get something done that he believed in. “He got the Spring Follies/musical going again. One of his dreams was to have a lovely refurbished, state-ofthe art auditorium/theater. This project has been completed and is a testimony to his commitment to that theatre program and his community,” said Milner.

She said students who hadn’t had the opportunity to know Kunik have expressed that they wish they had, just by the other students’ response to his illness and death.

“We are all mourning his passing, remembering the fun times, the inspired times. This is hard and will continue to be, but we’ll do our best to honor him with how we deal with students on a daily basis,” said Milner.

Kunik’s vitality and dedication to his students was a major force at Houghton Lake High School and Middle Schools, where he taught English and drama for 12 years. He also served as a coach for both basketball and softball.

Fellow teacher Eric Drogt called Kunik “ a dear friend and dedicated teacher. I miss him very much, as do a lot of people around here. We both appreciated a certain dry sense of humor. I tell others trying to deal with this to try to find something to laugh about at least once a day, because that is what Rob would tell them to do.”

“He was just a light, he was an incredible person,” said Kathy Serum, who taught with Kunik at both the middle school and the high school. “His positive attitude was infectious,” she said. Serum said over 500 people joined a Facebook group dedicated to Kunik’s memory (In Memory of Mr. Rob Kunik) the first day it became available.

“A lot of kids liked him because he was fair and he pushed them to write and to think,” said colleague Chris Sura, “We lost a good teacher... a great teacher.”

Mr. Kunik’s obituary can be found on page A3 of this week’s Resorter.