Celebration slated Sunday, July 19th

Growing up in a Friday Harbor-size town in western Pennsylvania Suzie Lefever preferred to be active. As a young girl she played pickup sports with the neighborhood kids and also enjoyed helping her father in his workshop. She learned about the various tools that he would ask her for and developed a curiosity about how things worked. And how to make them work better.

In college Suzie became interested in making the human body perform better. She eventually became a physical therapist. Recently Suzie closed San Juan Physical Therapy after helping hundreds upon hundreds of islanders’ bodies function better for more than 30 years.

“Suzie was just the best, the absolutely best” said Shannon Plummer, who worked with her as a prep coach and as a client.

“She’s a special woman. We’re lucky to have her here,” said Phyllis Adelman, a long-time participant in Suzie’s weekly balance classes.

“There cannot be enough praise given to Suzie,” Shannon said.

Islanders can thank Suzie for her commitment and dedication at a retirement celebration scheduled for 3 to 5:30 p.m. Sunday, July 19 at Brickworks in Friday Harbor. The casual, open-house event will include live music by The Dangerfields.

That celebration likely would never have been scheduled if not for Suzie’s interest in athletics. Since there were no girls in her Zelienople, PA neighborhood, Suzie played Wiffle ball, basketball, football with the boys. “We played pick-up everything,” she said.

The boys helped Suzie improve her skills. “No one ever said, ‘You throw like a girl.’ I had a cannon…I always played…because I could. They weren’t going to deny talent.”

Suzie competed with other girls in swimming and track and field in high school, but excelled on the basketball court. Until Suzie’s sophomore year, girls in Pennsylvania played six-on-six basketball — basically three defenders (guards) and three offensive players (forwards) on each half of the court. Each team had a rover — a player who was allowed to cross the centerline. The perfect position for an energetic freshman.

“So, they let me run around…because I was going to run around,” Suzie said.

Although an accomplished athlete, who lettered in basketball and swimming in high school, Suzie didn’t plan to compete in intercollegiate sports at West Virginia University. While studying for a physical education degree she continued to be a rec rat, playing intramural sports. When a teammate learned WVU was to field its first women’s basketball team, she suggested they try out. Suzie did and earned a spot on the college’s inaugural squad.

“We were horrible, but I made the team.”

An injury introduced Suzie to the athletic training staff.

“I thought, ‘Oh, this is kind of fun. This athlete training thing’s kind of cool.’ So, that started me on the path to athlete training.”

West Virginia was just starting an athletic training major, so Suzie decided she would apply to the program. She was accepted and spent an extra year adding that degree to her bachelor’s in physical education.

After being hired as an elementary physical education teacher and high school athletic trainer at a small West Virginia town, Suzie learned some coaches and parents were not ready for a female athletic trainer. She also discovered teaching elementary school children was not for her.

“No one thought I knew anything because I was this short, little girl, and nobody wanted to listen to me, and it was just, it was just a hassle.”

Suzie went back to school and earned a master’s degree in Special Education at Ball State University in Muncie, IN. A position working with orthopedically-impaired children proved too disheartening.

“I went home from school and cried every day.”

Frustrated, with two degrees and an unclear career path, Suzie listened to a former colleague. A physical therapist, he suggested she become one too. He told me: “Just go to PT school. You can use all the things you know already. You’ll learn more things, but you can treat pediatric kids. You can treat orthopedic kids, you can treat high school athletes, you can do sports medicine. Just go to PT school.”

Suzie returned to WVU and specialized in foot and ankle injuries while earning a bachelor’s in physical therapy. She worked a short time as a traveling physical therapist before taking a position at a 10,000 square-foot sports medicine facility in Columbus, Ohio. The clinic treated a wide variety of patients — from toddlers to the elderly, high school athletes to Olympic divers, ballet dancers to pro football players.

“It was a really great place to learn… We worked with exercise physiologists and athletic trainers, and physical therapy assistants.”

The well-equipped clinic encouraged cooperation between the different medical professionals, including orthopedic-osteopathic surgeons in the same building. “We had different people thinking about different things. So, it was a great place to learn. Plus, I was literally a sponge.”

A supervisor/mentor/friend proved influential. “He just really encouraged us to just think outside of the box…Mrs. Jones who needs a total hip (treatment) needs the same thing that Billy needs to run a 100-yard dash, they just need it differently…If a 100th of a second is going to make a difference if you get a medal or not, then mechanically things are a little bit different.”

The culture in the clinic changed about five years later when a large sports medicine company purchased the business. At the same time Suzie’s future ex-husband Glenn Button graduated with a master’s degree in engineering. The couple road-tripped to Alaska and then down to Seattle.

“The goal was to settle in Seattle…We were sitting in rush-hour traffic, bumper-to-bumper, dead stop, on a Friday at noon and I just looked at him and said, ‘Drive north until you run out of people and go to the coast.’”

At Burlington, Suzie told Glenn to turn left and they came to the end of the road in Anacortes.

“I fell in love instantaneously. It was what we call a ‘Baker Day.’ Mount Baker was out in all her glory in just a sparkly blue sky.”

A scan of the local newspaper revealed the cops were rounding up llamas.

“I said, ‘Okay, no drive-by shootings. You got drugs, drunks and llamas. I’m in.’”

Suzie soon found work at a physical therapy and sports rehabilitation clinic in Mount Vernon. Glenn faced a tougher search as Boeing had recently laid off engineers.

On a jaunt to San Juan Island the “rocket scientist” left his resume at Luxel Corp. The manufacturer of optical filters for space exploration hired him as a technician. Working 12-hour days, with travel time, took a toll. He quit but told them to call him if an engineering position opened. A year later they contacted him to fix a specialized machine desperately needed to produce equipment for an upcoming rocket launch. Then owner Forbes Powell recognized Glenn’s MacGyver-esque talents and offered him a position.

Meanwhile, Suzie was contentedly working three days a week, often playing the other four days and traveling to teach clinics about once a month. Glenn told Forbes he could not accept the position without Suzie having work on San Juan.

Forbes called Suzie and informed her San Juan Physical Therapy’s owner Karen (Boyd) Lanrose wanted a business partner. Suzie, not keen to work with someone she did not know and realized she could be “difficult to manage,” grudgingly came to Friday Harbor to talk to Karen.

“She didn’t want a partner. She wanted out. I said, ‘Oh, I could be in charge of myself.’”

Suzie purchased the business on a “handshake deal” and has worked full-time-plus since November 1, 1994.

Initially, some islanders didn’t take to Suzie’s matter-of-fact approach to healing. Soon they realized she really cared and did want them to heal. The late Bill Ament, like many patients, pushed too hard after initially feeling improvement from an injury. After receiving a chastising look and a stern lecture of “Do What Suzie Tells You,” he listened. In appreciation for her help, Bill gave her a framed print of that message. It was prominently displayed as a reminder for clients entering her practice.

Suzie also took her commitment and generosity to the island community out of the office. She started leading a balance class in the late 1990s at the Mullis Senior Center.

“She’s phenomenal,” said Phyllis Adelman.

“She really cares about us, our physical shape. And she works the old-fashioned way,” said her husband, David Adelman.

Every Wednesday from 1 to 2 p.m. Suzie guided the mostly senior islanders through a series of exercises designed to improve their strength and mobility.

“It’s definitely work for her. She sees changes in all of us and she tells us about it,” Phyllis said. “The reason we keep coming is, if we don’t come, we know we missed it. We’re not as balanced, we’re not as active.

“It’s a tremendous, tremendous gift to the community that she’s done. Tremendous.”

“She’s terrific,” David said.

“David is 89 and I’m 87. So, we’re just fortunate that she’s helped us stay as young as we are,” Phyllis said.

After each class — which Suzie plans to offer until Thanksgiving — she rewards the participants with a cookie.

Suzie also helped young athletes as a volunteer athletic trainer for about three decades. When former Friday Harbor football coach Gene Wilson contacted her about helping a player get back on the field, it reminded Suzie of a promise she made when being interviewed for WVU’s athletic training program.

“They said, ‘So, what happens if you take this extra year of school, and there’s no job for you? How are you gonna feel about that? I looked at them and I said, ‘You can’t take away what I know.’ And they said, ‘What?’ I said, ‘I can help somebody someday.’”

Suzie repaid that debt and then some. She has helped dozens and dozens of Wolverine athletes seeking her assistance. She has been on the sidelines for nearly all of the Friday Harbor home football games, several off-island contests and many practices.

“If you were an athlete at Friday Harbor, it didn’t matter what sport you participated in, Suzie would see you. She would take care of you,” said Shannon, a longtime assistant football coach and current head track coach.

“There was only one rule: Do What Suzie Said,” Shannon said. “And that family never received a bill.”

The few home football games she missed likely stemmed from her conducting clinics for other physical therapists and athletic trainers.

“Suzie could have been on any field, on any NFL team, any national soccer team, any national basketball team. Any team, anywhere in the United States and abroad, would be happy to have Suzie Lefever on their sidelines,” Shannon said.

He also noted Suzie was instrumental in teaching coaches how to prepare athletes for competition.

“It was so inspirational for her to spend time to teach me the things that she taught me about the physical aspects of taking care of our athletes,”Shannon said.

Although San Juan Physical Therapy closed, Suzie is happy that a physical therapist will still be available at the same location:  Kat Burns, who has been working at Rooted, is opening PivoT.

“She’s really excited about starting. She’s really enthusiastic,” Suzie said. “I’m glad she’s taking the space. I think it’s good.

Everybody knows to come here for physical therapy.”

Suzie is looking forward to moving more herself in retirement. While operating SJPT over the years, she said it was difficult to be away from the island for more than a few days. A trip to the Galapagos Islands and a cross-Canada rail journey are planned. And part of her Puffin Quest — seeing the three main species of the colorful seabirds — will include a visit to Iceland.

“They’re cute, they’re funny, they’re unique,” Suzie said of the colorful, tiny-winged birds. “And Iceland seems like a fun place to go.”

Suzie will also have more time to see the local puffins while boating in the islands with her life partner Mark Howard. In addition, she’s looking forward to some simple pleasures of retirement — shopping at the grocery store or mowing the lawn on a weekday afternoon.

And expect the G.O.A.T. Zucchini 500 Racer to be more prepared than ever for the San Juan County Fair event. Suzie usually “Squashes the Competition” in the stock-class: she could fill a trophy case with her blue ribbons.

“This is my sports nature coming out,” she said of competing in the zany competition.

Tinkering to improve her racer also harkens Suzie back to her youth when her father oversaw Pinewood Derby races for the Scouts. She and a brother would play with the cars and track during the summer.

Eventually, retirement might permit Suzie to indulge in another passion again: Scottish Terriers. “They kind of have a personality like me. They don’t like being in your face…They’re independent, they’re opinionated,” she said of why she prefers the spunky breed.

The next Scotty will be Suzie’s seventh. “Mark says we’re not done, we’re on hiatus.”

As many islanders are expressing their thanks to Suzie for making their physical lives better, she, in turn, is appreciative of them.

“Thanks, everybody, for supporting me and for… trusting me and believing in me…I just can’t say that enough. I got to do what I love to do and live in this beautiful bubble. I’m just, I am so grateful…

“The community helped me figure out what my purpose is on this earth.”

Photos and article by Matt Pranger