Sedona Oak-Creek School District Superintendent Tom Swaninger and his future wife Jill Sharer were both born in 1974 and started their romantic relationship during Christmas break in 1992.

“He came to my older sister’s Christmas party with me, and it was kind of after that we made it official,” Jill Swaninger said.

The high school sweethearts initially had an English class together and would eventually go on to become, in Jill’s case, an English teacher, and, in Tom’s case, a school administrator.

“I always tell the students that you never know that person sitting next to you,” Jill Swaninger said, referring to her marriage since 1999. “We’re a great balance. In my younger years … I tended to be more cautious, and a rule follower, and he was more adventurous … Besides that, he always has believed in me, too, sometimes to my detriment. Like when he first taught me how to mountain bike, he took me out on a tough trail and I have the scars to prove it.”

Jill Swaninger recently accepted a job teaching English to middle schoolers and creative writing to high schoolers in SOCSD and will also be assisting with curriculum mapping for fall 2024.

“Many educators have been questioning the longevity of this career,” Jill Swaninger said. “Since coming [to the VOC] I’ve been on a little hiatus … There was a point where I was job hunting, and was thinking maybe this is a perfect opportunity to do something else. But for the life of me, I couldn’t find one other thing I could be interested in.”

“I believe that there is more joy found in the teaching position than anywhere else,” Tom Swaninger agreed.

Both feel, however, that their resumes did not prepare them to raise three daughters, Holly, 12, Phoebe, 16, and Macy, 20, with Tom Swaninger joking that their professional experience prepared them for parenthood “about as well as [teaching] prepares us for doing our taxes … in truth it does offer a bit of context to pull from as each [child] navigates through the complexities of adolescence.

“We still experience great challenges as does any parent, but teaching probably does help a bit.”

Holly chose to follow in her father’s wake in the pool, taking up swimming as her sport of choice — Tom Swaninger was an All-American swimmer in 1992. She said one of her early memories is of jumping straight into the pool in spite of not having much swimming experience at the time.

“The thing that I’m most proud of with all of my kids is that they’re all very kind, they’re deep feelers,” Tom Swaninger said. “Some people, I feel like they feel deeper than others. Which is good, but also can be [hard] because they tend to carry a lot of weight emotionally.”

He also observed that his daughters have been feeling increasingly independent.

“It was such a large portion of our life where that wasn’t the case,” Tom Swaninger said. “In the younger years, you’re doing things together as a unit, where the kids are excited to be with you all the time. Now they’re off with their friends a lot more and doing their own thing, which is healthy what they should be doing.”

The Swaningers are now residents of the Village of Oak Creek, sans Macy, who is studying communications at Arizona State University, and said there were several factors that went into deciding on their new home after relocating in July. They needed a place able to accommodate Tom Swaninger’s parents during the winter, and the daughters were united in declaring that the quality of the bathrooms was of the utmost importance. However, the placement of the Christmas tree in front of the living room window with the red rocks in the background was a deciding factor in their eventual home selection.

It’s a home where family traditions such as holiday bingo and the Christmas pickle will continue.

“I don’t know where the tradition started, but whoever finds the pickle ornament on the tree is the one that gets to open or pick who opens a gift first,” Holly Swaninger laughed.

The family also plans to return to their cottage in Michigan every year, which was the location where Tom proposed to Jill and was the site of a “super fancy” honeymoon where the couple fished and played cards.

“We can be kind of boring people,” Tom Swaninger laughed.

The Swaningers are still being amazed by the outdoor recreation opportunities available in Sedona.

“If we’re together, we’re going to be fine,” Jill Swaninger said. “Just the little things we’ve had to get used to, being in a smaller town, not having many stores accessible, but we’ve adapted to it, and the biggest change, I think, is being further away from Macy.”

Macy noted parallels between the family’s recent move to Sedona and an earlier move from Michigan to Gilbert.

“It was definitely a lot for me because I grew up with all my cousins, my grandparents and saw my cousins every day,” Macy said. “Then when I got told we were moving, obviously I was super scared and did not want to leave. But the first week we moved into our new house I met my best friend [who] lived across the street, and we’re still best friends to this day … it was definitely scary at first, but I’m glad it happened.”

Tom Swaninger said he has observed an evolution in his daughters over the last few months, as well as how the girls keep their grandparents young by teaching them dances from TikTok.

“Holly, you hit the ground running with your friend group,” Tom said. “I see [that] Phoebe is really connected with her teachers, she’s getting straight A’s in her classes. If at any time she gets a grade or something happens that is anything really less than an A, she’s taking it upon herself to go back to her teacher and say, ‘What can I do to better understand this?’”

Phoebe said that changing schools has required an adjustment from her father’s former job as a principal in the Queen Creek Unified School District, when the family lived in the Phoenix metropolitan area.

“Everybody’s nice, but it’s a lot different, because my old school was huge,” Phoebe said during varsity softball practice. “After practice, I stay 30 minutes later, and [my dad and I] play together. It’s nice that we get to have that time together. We usually didn’t get to go to his old school.”

“I think [the move] is a lesson for these girls that you can do hard things,” Tom Swaninger said to his daughters. “It’s very easy to oftentimes to stay in the bubble … I think it’s a lesson in life. 

When you’re faced with something, you have to make a difficult choice, I can either stay where I’m at or I can push myself beyond my comfort zone. You’ll have something to look back on and say ‘I can do this.’”