What happened in the Auburn School District board room Thursday officially was “a retirement party,” a term usually associated with long, slow decline. And with so many colleagues and friends milling about swapping stories, it certainly looked like such an event.

But when Linda Cowan is the retiree, the term “retirement” needs amplification – for the district’s high-energy superintendent would be the last person to take that storied rocking chair and gather dust.

“I am going to sit on a porch, but I’m going to supervise Bud while he mows the lawn and trims the flowers,” Linda said with a glance at husband Bud Kuhlman. “I’m accustomed to having the opportunity to help support and supervise 1,600 people, and now I have Bud, so he’s going to get that full benefit.”

Kuhlman laughed.

“I think Linda has always been in charge. Her mother can’t figure out where she gets it. But hang around her mother long enough, you’ll find out,” Kuhlman said.

Cowan announced her retirement in January. On May 27, the Auburn School Board chose Deputy Superintendent Kip Herren to succeed her as superintendent.

Cowan said she has been too busy to think about the implications of the pending change, but when autumn leaves start to fall there’ll be no avoiding it. From student to teacher to principal at Cascade and Gildo Rey elementaries and upward to superintendent, school has been her life since she was a little girl.

“For 57 years, I have gone back to school every September. Not to do that any more will seem strange,” Cowan said.

“You know what I think, I think she’s going to sit down on her deck and cry that first day of school,” said her mother Betty Cowan. “She’s such a sweetheart. If any kid gets in trouble and needs someone to go to bat for him, Linda has always been the one.”

Cowan said she knew her daughter had education in her bones early on.

“She used to line up every kid she could get in the neighborhood to teach. She would put them on the steps and she would read to them,” Betty Cowan said.

And she was always independent.

“I remember on her first day of school, we walked about three blocks to the school, and we walked and talked and had a wonderful time. When we got to the door of her kindergarten room, and the teacher said, ‘Hi, Linda,’ Linda walked in, turned around and said, ‘You can go home now, mom.’ That’s the way it’s always been. She didn’t need me anymore.”

“There are those that at a young age believed they had a calling,” said Tim Cummings, the district’s assistant superintendent of human resources, who has worked with Cowan for 20 years. “When you hear a story like her mother just told, you know Linda had a calling, and that’s why she’s been as successful as she has. This is her calling in life.

“Linda brought an amazing work ethic and caring to the district. I can’t imagine anybody taking her place and demonstrating that same kind of commitment and dedication. All through that she has this pervasive caring about people and as great as she cares about people, she cares about the district even more,” Cummings said.

“I’ve known her since she was a principal at Cascade in the 1970s, and have watched her growth throughout the years and she has always had a big heart for kids,” said Roger Thordarson, former transportation director and maintenance and custodial supervisor for the school district.

Retired teacher Carolyn Standley recalled how Cowan used come to her first-grade classroom at Ilalko Elementary and read to her kids.

“She came over when we were making graham cracker houses for the kids, and the parents and Linda were sitting at one table decorating their houses. She is so good with kids. What she brought to the district was an ability to operate at the administrative level and a wonderful ability to be with kids in the classroom.”

Of course, it wasn’t all business.

“One of her career goals was to be a singer, and those of us on district staff have heard her yodel,” Herren said. “But the best was when she tried to resuscitate herself with an automatic electronic defibrillator.”

Of course, there is a positive side to this retirement business, and Cowan revels in being able to travel without having to rush home or worry about what is going to happen in the school district. Husband and wife are planning to take a trip along the Panama Canal, then visit St. Petersburg and Moscow next year.

These days Cowan carries about with her a book called “1,000 Things To Do Before I Die,” and she checks off items as she goes. Hint – there’s a whole lot of book left.

Already Cowan has several jobs lined up. She will do some teaching at Seattle and City universities. A state agency has offered her a position. And she will keep up her activity on the Auburn Regional Medical Center Board and with Rotary and other organizations.

“Everybody is worried about her coming in and changing my lifestyle,” said Kuhlman, himself a retired principal. “She’s going to be gone doing things like she always has been. She tells me she’s going to be a gourmet cook, and I say, ‘Yeah, that means you are just going to have warmed-up leftovers.’ She’ll have plenty to do.”