The couple: Steve and Peggy Hoy.
The local: Twin Falls Education Association and Idaho Education Association-Retired.
What they do: Peggy is a longtime IEA leader and member of the Twin Falls Education Association who taught math and worked as an instructional coach. Steve served as a teacher before becoming a principal and eventually retiring.
Idaho’s overcrowded classrooms are a perennial problem. But for Steve and Peggy Hoy, a full classroom wasn’t just a challenge. It was the start of a relationship.
A few decades ago, Peggy was a new teacher in the Twin Falls School District who was brought on two weeks into the school year to relieve overcrowding. Steve was an established teacher and coach. When Peggy was hired to a permanent position, she also became the cheerleading advisor — and that meant many trips together on yellow buses, hitting the road for games.
“We realized we were both from Montana, and the second year we started to commute together to and from Montana,” Peggy said, spending hours together on wintry roads during the holidays.
Their students noticed their chemistry, too. “We got voted cutest couple in seventh grade!” Peggy remembered. “Our principal made us go to the dance, and we had to wear our Burger King crowns.”
“We accepted our awards and drifted off,” Steve added.
Aside from their love for sports and their shared home state, Peggy and Steve had something else in common: Unionism. Steve was already an established member when Peggy joined, and their love for the Idaho Education Association and their profession became a focal point after their marriage.
They traded off attending Delegate Assembly, one staying home with their expanding family while the other traveled to the event, until the kids were old enough to leave at home. Their first joint DA was an overnight in Coeur d’Alene with the kids under the watchful eye of a babysitter.
From then on, they traded their increasing responsibilities — both served as presidents of TFEA and on the IEA Board of Directors. Their three kids were along for the ride, too.
“It wasn’t uncommon for our kids to come with us … they had their little traveling kits for coloring or whatnot,” Peggy said. “We relied on that union family to help us take care of our kids, too.”
Steve and Peggy spent hours after the children went to bed counting paper ratification votes spread out on their living room floor or holding meetings on their deck so they wouldn’t have to hire a sitter.
“One of us has always been in some sort of leadership role,” Peggy said. “We’ve learned how to support each other in that, and then how we navigated raising kids. And we must have done something right, because our youngest is now a teacher in Montana.”
When Steve became a principal, they had to create strict boundaries around work and union life. That included agreeing to disagree.
“I’d always make sure I wasn’t overstepping it,” Steve said. “But sometimes we just had to be on opposite ends of an issue.”
Despite the challenges, Steve and Peggy supported each other through major career milestones. Steve pursued his master’s degree while serving on the IEA Board of Directors, and Peggy stepped into increasingly visible leadership roles, including six years of service on the National Education Association Board of Directors.
When Peggy questioned whether she could take on such a big commitment, Steve reminded her why it mattered. “This makes you happy,” she recalled Steve saying. “And so, of course, you have to do it.”
Now, Steve is a retired member and Peggy is pursuing the presidency of the Idaho Education Association. Their children are grown. And after decades of teaching, leading, organizing, parenting, and advocating side by side, their advice to younger union couples is simple.
“Stay true to your values,” Peggy said. “And don’t ever apologize for having your kids there. Having them there is really important.”
The couple: Natalie Stone and Randi Frederick.
The local: Moscow Education Association.
What they do: Both work at Moscow Middle School. Stone is a counselor and Frederick teaches electives.
One of Natalie Stone’s students led her to love.
Stone was a high school extended resource special education teacher when she took her students on a field trip to the grocery store. When a student asked butcher Randi Frederick for assistance while shopping, Stone said she saw heart eyes. She began pumping her friend network for information and scored an introduction through a mutual friend.
“She was kind enough not to be creeped out by me asking everybody I knew if they knew her,” Stone remembered.
It was the beginning of a love story — not just between Stone and Frederick, but for teaching.
Frederick spent several years listening to Stone and her colleagues talk about the challenges and rewards of working in education and found herself mulling a career change. What if she worked in education, too?
“So I decided to quit my paying job and get one that didn’t pay very much money,” she laughed. “And so I started working in the kitchen.”
After a year of school cafeteria work, Frederick applied for a para position. By then, she was hooked.
“I had a lot of teachers tell me that I should get my teaching degree, get a SPED degree,” she said. “I’m a super relational person, so I relate with those kids really well and build those relationships quickly.”
At 45, Frederick began taking classes for her new degree. She hadn’t studied since graduating from college in 1991. “We didn’t even use computers!” Frederick said. “Poor Natalie — I had so many questions. But it all worked out.”
Now, Stone and Frederick teach at the same school, using their 45-minute commute time to prep for the day or decompress for the evening together. Being in education has only deepened their relationship, they said, because they fully understand each other’s worlds now.
Now, when one of them can’t sleep for worrying about a student, the other understands. “We have a lot of compassion for one another,” Stone said. “It allows us to recognize when we might need someone to check on us.”
Both are longtime union members, too. Frederick has been a member of a union since entering the workforce at 19, and Stone has been active in the Moscow Education Association for years. Stone is the sort of member who will stay up until midnight to make something homemade for the work potluck, Frederick said. “I’ll be like, ‘Can we just go to Costco?’” she laughs.
But that’s what makes Stone special, Frederick said. The couple have been married twice now — once in Canada in 2006, when it became legal for gay people to marry there, and in the United States after the Obergefell vs. Hodges Supreme Court ruling. It’s easy to see why.
“We have a lot of fun together,” Frederick said. “We’re just really goofy and fun, and we make the best of it.”
The couple: Julie and Jake Smulkowski.
The local: Post Falls Education Association and Coeur d’Alene Education Association.
What they do: Jake is a science teacher at Ponderosa Elementary in Post Falls; Julia teaches math at Lakes Middle School in Coeur d’Alene.
The Smulkowskis are so union that they met at the National Education Association Representative Assembly in Houston.
It was 2019. Julia was a first-time delegate from South Dakota when she met Jake through her local union president. Their first exchange was memorable.
“I think my first words to him were like, ‘Does your beard just grow in all white trashy like that?” she laughs. “He came in very arrogant into the room and I had to, you know, knock him down a few pegs.”
“I mean, Idaho has to represent,” he remembered, tongue firmly in cheek. “We have a big reputation to fill.”
Jake’s reputation was furthered in Julia’s eyes when he showed up on the RA floor wearing a romper emblazoned with tacos and cats for a fundraiser. They began a conversation that continued after Jake went home to Idaho and Julia returned to South Dakota.
Their relationship unfolded across state lines, shaped by shared unionism and an understanding of what it means to teach in states that can be hostile to public education. Both were already active in union and political work, navigating education policy in places where public education often has to fight to be heard.
“I had never dated a teacher,” Julia said. “There’s something in having your partner be someone who truly gets the work you do.”
For Julia, Jake’s ability to listen was a huge draw. “He is a fabulous communicator, and he makes you feel really heard,” she said. “I was like, ‘Wow, I can talk to you about deep stuff.’ ”
Jake felt the same pull, admiring Julia’s dedication to justice. “Just her commitment to helping marginalized groups,” he said. “That was something that I was really drawn to about her.”
The pandemic hit while they were dating. Leadership summits were canceled. Flights shut down. Teaching went remote. Instead of long-distance dating, they moved in together and began organizing, teaching and living side-by-side.
“I hoodwinked her into marrying me. Now I have this little future Idaho public school child,” Jake said, smiling at their toddler, Henry, who joins Jake’s son from a previous relationship.
Their union lives may now look different than they did before marriage, but they are no less committed. Julia is now an IEA region president, running Zoom meetings while Henry bangs on the door. Jake is president of the Post Falls Education Association, taking late-night calls from members in crisis.
They trade. They cover for each other when time is tight. And they’re living their union values.
“It’s just the belief that people, when they get together, are stronger,” Jake said. “It’s the power of everyday people to be able to create a better life for each other.”
The same could be said for their marriage — and their union work at large. Although they are very involved now, they both eventually plan on developing the next generation of union leaders.
“We can continue to do a lot,” Julia said. “But we can also build up other people.”
