Episode Details

Superintendent:
Hello, and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. Jessi Morton-Langehaug is a passionate educator, athlete, ultra-marathon runner and parent. On this episode of the Supercast, the Herriman High School teacher talks about inspiring students by sharing her personal story with them. Jesse went undiagnosed with Lyme disease for 10 years and was told she would never run or compete again because her body was too damaged. Hear how Jesse defied the odds, not only competing again but recently winning the Moab 240. That's right, 240 miles with the fourth-fastest time in history. Jesse's story is one of hope and inspiration as we begin the new year. Jesse, I'm just going to ask you to kind of list off some of the amazing things that you're up to. Let's start with teaching.

Jessi:
I teach chemistry, AP chemistry, honors chemistry, regular chemistry, and yoga at Herriman High School. And a hobby is I love to run. I like ultra-marathon the most, but I've run the Boston Marathon three times. I've done Chicago. I've done New York. I ran my first marathon four months after my daughter was born. She's now six and a half. And I've just kept going further and further since then and just finished a Moab240 three weeks ago.

Superintendent:
Yeah. This is a long list of accomplishments in a very short amount of time, but I'm going to start with chemistry and yoga. That is perhaps a combination I'm going to use in the future. When I'm talking about difficult teachers to replace, it used to be French and math as the combination, but I think chemistry and yoga is going to take over as the new example of a difficult position to replace. Why chemistry and yoga?

Jessi:
Well, chemistry because really, chemistry is the fundamental science of everything. So like biology, if you break it all down, it all has to do with chemistry. And then yoga, it's just become a passion of mine. I started practicing yoga and then went to yoga teacher training and then spent three years in India and in three summers, my students actually were the ones that knew that I had gone to India. I would talk about meditation with them and things like that. And they asked me to bring yoga to Jordan School District. They said if we would go around to get enough signatures, will you write the program or get it to Jordan School District or get it to the high school catalog to teach here? And so I said yes, go get signatures. We'll see what I can do. So they did. I went to the District and presented yoga and they got it on the catalog and now we have yoga. So, I'm kind of a "Jack of all trades".

Superintendent:
Well, that's very impressive. And it's exciting that the students were the ones that were behind adding yoga to your schedule.

Jessi:
Yeah. I give them the credit. Absolutely.

Superintendent:
Well, you've had a wide variety of experiences and like I said, a wide range of expertise. I want to talk a little bit about the running nap. You said that you started just after your daughter was born, just a few months after. So you've been running for about six years. Is that right?

Jessi:
Well, I ran cross-country in high school. But then I got Lyme Disease and it wreak