EVERY DAY WAS A TREAT… SENORA BRITT RAYMOND OFF TO MAKE NEW STORIES She was on the Norwegian Olympic Ski Team. Or, she was in an Ingmar Bergman film, playing a sadistic nurse. ¡Qué susto! Or briefly dated Joe Namath (it was her fur coat). She, some say, speaks fourteen languages fluently, but thinks in Braille. She invested heavily in Tesla in 2003 and teaches only for fun. It is difficult to say which of the many tales about Britt Raymond— part mystery, part Viking, all class and grace and splendor—are true. That she is retiring this May after 36 years at Moeller is one truth. That she taught Spanish for three-plus decades and then became the brains, sweat, and heart of the Moeller Yearbook for twenty-two years is another. That Southern women only ever “perspire” and never “sweat” is another fact. Here’s what else we know— Years before Moeller—how many, specifically, is not important or polite—but occupying German soldiers (true story) helped lift baby Britt onto city trollies. She was a child in Drammen, Norway, living beside a fjord. When she was in the first grade, her father, a haberdasher (look it up), soon moved his very Norwegian family to rural Argentina, where it became time to learn a second language: “The teachers would only ever speak Spanish and would also pull your hair if you did something wrong. I learned Spanish quickly,” Britt remembers.
16
MOELLER HIGH SCHOOL
Three years later, the family tried Massachusetts and the third, and “final” language was learned on the fly, (Britt is also passable in Swedish and Danish so, five languages.) Then back to Norway for a bit before South Carolina for high school and, well, a sixth language: Southern charm (of which Britt Raymond has been certified “Distinguished Fluency.”)
Britt’s kindness and Southern charm endeared her to them, especially to her colleagues.” -Moeller Principal Carl Kremer
Mrs. Raymond started at Moeller in the spring of 1988, replacing a teacher who was leaving in the middle of the year. “It has been a blast from day one!”
