SOUTH HADLEY — At Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter School commencement earlier this month, history teacher Gary Huggett joined the Class of 2026 on the Academy of Music stage in a purple graduation cap to turn his own tassel.

“In case you hadn’t figured it out, I figured I’d graduate with these guys,” Huggett told the graduates. “Look at all of you, it only took you six years. It took me 30. But, we did it.”

Like all great comedy, there is a hint of truth in Huggett’s joke. Many of the original staff of the charter arts school have come and gone, but Huggett has remained at PVPA since its inception in 1996. Like the seniors, he left PVPA at the end of the school year to begin the next chapter of his life: retirement.

Huggett’s journey at PVPA took the history teacher in a unexpected direction. During those three decades, he too became a student of the arts.

“(When) I came in here, I appreciated the arts, but did I appreciate art? No,” he said.

Art thrived in Huggett’s classroom rather than simply around it. Exploring the arts charter school to the fullest, Huggett incorporated dance and music into project-based learning and leveraged the theatrical strengths of his mock trial team members. In doing so, Huggett inspired curiosity, connection and confidence his students would never forget.

“The one constant was knowing that Gary was there. As a department head, he’s been a pillar through all the good times and bad times,” said Jim Cox, a history teacher and Huggett’s co-worker for 29 years. “I can’t imagine PVPA without him, he’s been in many ways the heart of the school.”

In 1995, Huggett arrived at a law office in Northampton to interview at a school that did not exist yet. He and his wife had applied to every school within 50 miles of Keene, New Hampshire in hopes of landing a job with a less grueling commute. Co-founders of PVPA Ljuba Marsh and Bob Brick hired him almost immediately.

“He was perfect,” Brick said. “This is a brand new start-up school when charter schools were brand new. We were a tiny staff and only had one grade the first year. We needed someone to be flexible, who could work with us to design the school.”

Any class or activity Huggett suggested, Brick and Marsh immediately backed. Not only did Huggett develop a strong core curriculum, but he also established history electives on government figures, American women’s history, the 1960s and the Holocaust. These courses were rigorous and came with high expectations.

“In Gary’s class, they can’t screw around,” Huggett said, speaking in the third person. “Gary’s not mean, but Gary cares, and he will follow up, and he will not, you know, not put up with the nonsense without contacting your parents.”

When PVPA operated out of the Russell School in Hadley before relocated to South Hadley, there were no bells announcing the beginning of class. But there was Huggett. He’d often catch middle school students loitering in the halls and send them to class. Combined with his rigorous academics, students knew Huggett as “Scary Gary.”

“In middle school you would hear about Gary being this big tough teacher and that you have straighten up your act before you get to his class,” said Jay Winters, PVPA’s theater manager and an alum. “He’s not that scary in reality, but the rumors still spread because he is a very dedicated and passionate man. He’s very through in making sure you do your homework.”

Brick said he also hired Huggett based on his previous experience coaching mock trial teams in New Hampshire. The single line on his resume would result in the most successful mock trial team in western Massachusetts.

PVPA made it to the semifinals every year in the 28 years Huggett coached the school’s team. They were finalists at least nine times and took home four state titles, often losing to Huggett’s nemesis in Windsor, Connecticut.

The hard work, ambition and theater experience of the team members is a big reason behind PVPA mock trial success, but the backbone was Huggett.

“I discovered when we went to nationals, we were with all these people that loved mock trial,” Huggett said. “What I love is being close to the kids. I was bringing the kids up. That’s what I loved.”

All that love is plastered on the walls of Hugget’s classroom: photos of all his previous mock trial teams, a “Scary Bear-y” stuffed animal from his first championship, a plaque for the law office of “Hugget, Kaiser and children” and a gavel adorned with “to Gary, with love.”

Not all the team members went on to become attorneys, but Brick’s son did. In fact, his son did not want to stay at PVPA until he joined mock trial and won the 2005 state championship. He now serves as the deputy director of the Massachusetts Appeals Court in Springfield.

“I think he’s the best history teacher I’ve heard of or seen,” Brick said. “The personal connection he had on our family was very typical. He had that impact on dozens and dozen of students.”

Mock trials were not confined to the team. Huggett also brought them into the classroom as teaching tools, while PVPA students took over UMass for mock constitutional conventions and ratification debates. Cox watched students become far more engaged with the material during these simulations, and he said the exercises deepened his own understanding as a teacher.

“He talked a lot about students being the history,” Cox said. “Following that model, having students act it out or be in the history instead of just reading the history.”

This was part of Huggett’s approach to arts integration, a skill he honed at PVPA. Winters recalls writing a song about Andrew Jackson to the tune of “American Pie” and performing the “dance of the governments” with a mix of mild embarrassment and pure joy. Every history class included a movement component, and Huggett often joined right in.

“You could never quite get an 70-year-old man moving his arms like that out of your head,” Winters said.

Winters carries the lessons of Huggett’s classroom to this day. Effective effort equals success— a saying so famous the seniors covered his classroom with it for a prank — became his permanent work attitude. He put all his energy into every college assignment, and now every show at PVPA.

“Gary Huggett is like a permanent legacy of PVPA because up until this ninth grade class, every single student has had Gary Huggett as a teacher, which is wild to think about,” Winters said.

The students too had a lasting effort on Huggett.

“I’ll miss this place,” Huggett said.