Raymond LaVallee was born in Old Town, Maine, in 1921.  He earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Maine in 1949 and his master’s degree from the University of Iowa in 1952. His post-graduate work included study at the Colby-Swarthmore Summer School of Languages and at the University of Maine (as a participant in a National Defense Education Act Workshop). He studied in Paris under a grant from the United States Office of Education, and, from 1959-1960, served as a Fulbright exchange teacher in Dinant, Belgium.

LaVallee’s educational leadership was well known before he joined the Malcolm Price Laboratory School faculty in 1964 as its new Language Department Chair.   He had been instrumental in developing the language program of the Iowa City public schools during the eleven years he spent there from 1953-1964, the last six as Language Department Chair.  He had taught for several summers on the University of Iowa staff and had served as Assistant Director of three language Summer Institutes sponsored by the State College of Iowa (today’s University of Northern Iowa).  

As Dr. Marguirette Struble moved toward retirement, LaVallee was more than suitable to step into her vital leadership role—in fact, he was another classic Lab School “type.”  Once more a teacher was lured from Iowa City; once more, a teacher who cherished the profession.  LaVallee was a member of the American Association of Teachers of French and the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese.

The shock and the loss to the school and to the profession cannot be expressed when, in March 1969, he died in a car accident on the snowy streets of Cedar Falls. A master of three modern languages, at the time of his death, LaVallee was President of the Iowa Association of Teachers of French. At his funeral, Laboratory School High School Principal James Albrecht spoke of LaVallee’s great love of life that burned through all he did and his ability to make friends of people from all walks of life. 

For more on the teaching of French at the Lab School, click here: The Teaching of French

For more on the Lab School’s Classical to World Language Department History, click here: CWL History