Kim Morrissey has taught thousands to swim, not done yet

At any given swimming party on any given summer day, there’s a good chance that someone is staying afloat thanks to “Miss Kim.”
Kim Morrissey, a 69-year-old Wichita retiree who has been teaching swimming lessons in Wichita for four decades, estimates that she’s taught at least 5,000 people to swim, some from different generations of the same family. 
For the last 33 years, she’s done it in a sparkling swimming pool in the backyard of her mid-century white brick home in the Sherwood Glen neighborhood, near 37th Street North and I-235.
For eight weeks every summer, Morrissey, with help from eight other hired instructors, offers two-week sessions of one-on-one lessons that happen for 30 minutes at a time, Mondays through Thursdays. By the end of each summer, 275 students will have come and gone.
The swimming lessons are a little side hustle for Morrissey, who retired nine years ago from a long career as an educator, most of it spent teaching physical education in USD 259 elementary schools Stanley, Earhart and finally Dodge Literacy Magnet.
The lessons are also one of Morrissey’s greatest passions, so much so that she moved to her current home in 1992 just because it had a pool where she could teach. 
Over the years, Miss Kim’s little swim school has become one of Wichita’s most sought after, even though it’s never been advertised. Her first clients years ago were her elementary school students, and since then, her summer sessions have been booked to capacity with people who have been referred to her through word of mouth or Facebook. 
Though Morrissey teaches all ages — including seniors who want to improve their skills — most of her students are younger children whose moms and siblings wait and watch under one of the many colorful umbrellas stationed around the pool.  
Occasionally, Morrissey admits, she’s thought about retiring from teaching swimming, too. But it just never happens, she said with a laugh. She’s missed being around children, and the lessons give her a “kid fix,” she said.

“I’ve said to all of my parents for the last three years, maybe four, ‘This might be my last year,’” Morrissey said. “And then I’m back in the pool. So I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m going to continue to do swim lessons as long as I like it and I can.”
A change in plans
Morrissey didn’t always plan on becoming a P.E. teacher. Initially, she enrolled at Kansas State University to become an interior decorator.  
But she had a little too much fun her freshman year, she said, and she “pretty much flunked out.”
“I came back to Wichita, and my mom was a P.E. teacher for a short period,” she said. “And I thought, ‘You know, I think that’s what I’ll do.’”
She enrolled in Wichita State University, and when she started her career, she said, she fell in love with it.
Teaching P.E. made sense to Morrissey, who’d grown up in a family of athletes, most of whom went to college on athletic scholarships. 
“I did not,” she said. “I was not an athlete. I was a girly girl. I did things like the pom pom squad. I was kind of a clutz. So when I became a P.E. teacher, I could help those kids that it didn’t click for. I understood what it felt like when you were not the best at throwing a ball, or you were not the best at playing basketball.”
Early in her career, Morrissey served as a swimming coach at West High School, and she taught her first swimming lessons to USD 259 summer school students. She had a knack for it, so she started offering private lessons to people at their own homes.
“And then I thought, ‘Well, this is stupid. I’m going to get a house with a pool,’” she said. “So I went house hunting particularly for a house that had a pool.”
When she first started her backyard swim school, she was the only teacher. Eventually, her daughter taught alongside her. Then her granddaughter joined in. Today, as many as five one-on-one lessons are often happening simultaneously in the pool, and her small staff includes two current and one other retired P.E. teachers.
When she first bought her house with the pool, the backyard was trashed, she said. But over the years, she’d use the money from swim lessons to fix it up.
Today, the bright pool is surrounded by potted flowers, pool umbrellas, lots of table-and-chair groupings and two striped canvas cabanas that her students can use to change clothes.
Colorful kickboards are piled on the edge of the pool as is a big assortment of dive toys. 
There’s a water fountain burbling in one corner of the yard, and a small pergola is decorated with a sign that reads, “Keep calm and stay anchored.”
Parents, she said, have joked that all the pool needs to make it perfect are cocktails with little umbrellas. 
“They really like to be back here,” she said. “They get 30 minutes of peace and really like being in the back yard.”
On a recent afternoon, Morrissey and one of her young instructors were in the pool, each giving a makeup swimming lesson. Morrissey was on one end wearing a brightly colored two-piece swimsuit, her blonde hair in a bun on the top of her head. She was patiently helping a 6-year-old named Abraham how to improve his stroke.
“Big arms! Big arms!” she encouraged as his hands plunked into the water. “Lookie there! Give me five! You’re in the deep water!”
One-on-one help
At the end of the lesson, the boy’s pleased mother asked Morrissey if she taught children with special needs. She had an older child at home whom she thought could benefit from lessons.
Morrissey in fact, will teach anyone over the age of 2, and she’s had great success. Her one-on-one lessons, she said, are particularly good for people who would be overwhelmed by the group lessons that are most commonly offered around town. 
“So if your child is one of those that is afraid of the water or might be special needs, they might need that extra help,” she said. “That’s kind of my part.”
Morrissey, who also just started another job as the co-executive director of the Kansas Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation & Dance, said that she feels lucky to have taught so many people in Wichita such an important skill. 
In fact, she said, she’s taught so many people that it’s hard for her to go anywhere in Wichita without being recognized. It even happens when she’s out of town.
She tells a story about the time that a young man was helping repair her next-door-neighbor’s roof. 
“And he looked in my back yard and he said, ‘I think I took swim lessons in that pool,’” she said.
Goal is ‘more than 100’
Years ago, a friend sent Morrissey a YouTube video about a 102-year-old woman who was still teaching lessons at the YMCA. “This is you,” her friend commented.
“It’s my goal,” Morrissey said. “I want to be able to continue to do that. And I tell people all the time, my plan is to live to be more than 100.”
Teaching lessons has helped keep her young, Morrissey said, especially in her own mind. And she believes that the keys to longevity are not only movement but also socialization. 
“And look at how much socialization I get,” she said. 

Any senior interested in private lessons with Morrissey can call her at 316-641-6383.