She wasn't able to end her founding days with the quick goodbye she had hoped for as more than 100 people turned out for her retirement celebration. It was a party that capped a career of teaching physical education as a consummate professional. Her retirement also marks the end of an era.

When the college opened on Sept. 14, 1964, it was known as West Valley Junior College and was located on the site of the old Campbell Grammar School at Campbell and Winchester avenues. There were about 50 people who helped to start the school, and Sarlo was the first female PE instructor.

"You never know who you touch," Sarlo says. "I'll be in the store and someone will come up to me who was in my sailing class 20 years ago."

The Campbell campus, which has since been converted into offices, was where Sarlo first taught classes in dance, archery and fitness. She recalls that the buildings were not earthquake-safe, so everyone taught in portables.

"It was very primitive, teaching in portables," she recalls.

Sarlo, 74, recollects an occasion from the 1960s when a female student came to volleyball class without a shirt on because "topless was in." Sarlo also remembers walking into the PE department office--a large, fixed-up garden shed--that was filled with male coaches.

She first taught at Lincoln High School from 1952 to 1955 and traveled throughout Europe between 1955 and 1959. She went on to earn her bachelor's degree in physical education from San José State University and later a master's degree. She was teaching dance classes part-time at San José State when she applied to West Valley College in 1964.

"Everything was new so there was that real pioneering spirit," she says.

Anytime an instructor from that founding group received an emeritus status upon retirement, they became a member of an informal group known as The Pioneers, Sarlo says. Sarlo also recalls that the staff--before there was an organized faculty association--would meet and talk about how to have more of a "voice" in terms of how the college was run. Today, there are new processes for faculty and staff to offer input about how the college operates. And the pioneers have "died off" one by one, Sarlo says.

Sarlo recalls that the PE department moved to the Saratoga campus in 1974 as one of the final departments built at the Fruitvale Avenue location. But whether she was teaching on the Campbell or Saratoga campus, what Sarlo has always loved is that she teaches what she enjoys.

"It's such a wonderful job because of the contact with students. You can give them things they can use for the rest of their lives," Sarlo says. "I love to be active, and I love everything I teach. I love sailing. I love skiing."

Jim Haynes met Sarlo when she taught his Introduction to PE class in 1972. At the time, Haynes says he wasn't sure if he wanted to be a football coach. Sarlo's class opened up new possibilities for him. She helped him become involved with the California Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, where she was a conference manager. The organization promotes healthy lifestyles through quality education, and strives to provide leadership in the areas of health, physical education, recreation and dance.

"She introduced me to the whole concept of professionalism in physical education as part of an educational process," he says.

Haynes went on to finish his degrees at West Valley and San José State. He has been teaching adaptive PE for people with disabilities at De Anza College for the last 29 years.

"I should also mention Joan is an avid reader, and a lot of that rubbed off on me," he says. "I now read all the time."

Sarlo taught a ski class for approximately 10 years on a now-defunct Astroturf ski hill on the Saratoga campus. Her husband of 48 years, Otto, a ski instructor she met in Austria, also taught at West Valley College for a period of time. Sarlo led a sailing class on Vasona Lake for eight years. She taught a tennis class for 15 years, and coached the women's tennis team for five years.

"In our job, there's such a variety of activities you can branch off into," Sarlo says.

Growing up in Chicago and Los Angeles, Sarlo was constantly in motion as a young girl playing tennis, swimming or riding her bike. Her love for physical activity made a career of teaching it a perfect fit. But her teaching skills evolved as the stretching class progressed into a yoga class. As time and technology moved forward, Sarlo started a stress-management course online. She developed the program nine years ago, and has been teaching the class ever since. The popular course teaches participants how to control stress, how to be more assertive and about the psychology behind stress and how it affects the body.

Sarlo plans to continue teaching the online course in her retirement as an associate faculty member. She's credited with being on the forefront of what has been up-and-coming in physical education.

"I introduced yoga to West Valley College 25 years ago," she says. "It became one of my favorite classes to teach."

Judi Strozza, a former West Valley College student, was in Sarlo's first yoga session when students packed into the large gym to take the class. She recently enrolled in the last yoga class when she heard Sarlo was retiring. She says Sarlo keeps current on physical education practices, which is refreshing because it's something not all instructors take the time to do. Strozza described Sarlo's teaching style as positive, knowledgeable and pleasant.

"She explains what each position does to strengthen the body," Strozza says.

Strozza added she had never done any kind of physical activity before she took Sarlo's class, and today she participates in aerobics, pilates and plays tennis regularly.

"Joan is a genuine person, and she has done wonders for that school," Strozza adds.

Carol Knight, the PE division chairwoman, a PE instructor and the women's volleyball coach, has worked with Sarlo since 1982.

"She is an extremely popular instructor here in the PE division. She's knowledgeable and caring with her students, and she holds a high professional standard," Knight says.

Knight says the women in the PE division always look forward to Sarlo organizing an annual ski trip. Knight also says Sarlo stays current in her discipline, researching what's cutting edge and taking computer classes to stay up to speed.

"She's such a vital part of our division," Knight says. "She continues to be reference and resource to us."

Knight adds that Sarlo hasn't just served the PE division, but the college as a whole. Sarlo has been academic senate president more than once. She's been a role model to other staff members on curriculum committees, been a part of the college's accreditation process and been involved in strategic planning. She also organized the college's 35th anniversary and helped to form the college's educational facilities master plan.

Sarlo has also watched Proposition 13 affect the college's funding mechanism. She's stuck by the West Valley-Mission Community College District as it went from adequate funds to difficult times.

"The college has always tried to make things invisible to the students so the classes continue as they always have," Sarlo says.

Marchelle Fox, former West Valley College president, says when she first came to the college in the summer of 1996, Sarlo had been elected as academic senate president for that coming year. But at the time, Sarlo was spending the summer traveling, so Fox had to wait to meet the woman she'd heard so much about.

"I recall we just hit it off," Fox says. "She is just so knowledgeable about everything that has gone on at the college from the beginning."

Fox described Sarlo as an exemplar for how teachers should instruct--continuing to perfect their craft from the start of their career to the very end. Fox has also taken Sarlo's cross-country skiing and Monday night yoga class.

"She's just a great teacher," Fox says. "Her classes were always jammed. She always found room for everyone. I never saw her turn someone away."

Fox says today when she performs yoga stretches on her own, she can still hear Sarlo's soft, encouraging voice in her mind.

Sarlo lives on the west side of San Jose, and the corner of her house is technically in Saratoga, she says. She's seen not only the Saratoga community grow, but the college expand over the past 41 years. The six original members of the PE department have turned into more than 30 instructors who teach well over 100 classes. While students were once required to take PE to earn a degree, students now take PE classes because they are cost-effective. It can be cheaper to take a community college PE class than to sign up for a gym membership for a month, Sarlo says.

"We offer such a variety, and people need activity for the rest of their lives to be healthy human beings. The body is meant to be mobile," Sarlo says. "People just feel good when they are active."

Sarlo's long list of the classes she's taught over the years also includes volleyball, which she taught for five years on outdoor courts. Today, students play on sand volleyball courts. Whenever Sarlo wanted to teach a class she didn't know how to teach or there was nobody to teach a class, she simply decided she'd learn how to do it. She bought a sailboat and took it out on Pinecrest Lake until she got the hang of it.

"I learned how to do it, and then I taught," Sarlo says. "Now people have expertise when they come to us, but in the early years we didn't have a lot of expertise in a lot of things, so we had to get ourselves up to speed."

As the school year comes to an end, Sarlo's calendar is still packed. Now, though, she'll no longer be limited by the confines of the school calendar.

"I want to do things when I want to do them," Sarlo says. "I just knew it was time to retire."

Sarlo is looking forward to visiting more with her children--ages 45, 46 and 48--and six grandchildren. She's also taken up golf. Exercise will always be a part of her daily routine, whether it's jogging in her neighborhood or using her recently acquired gym membership to The Right Stuff Health Club on Campbell Avenue.

"I hope I can jog forever," she says. "So far, my joints are holding up. I jog at my own pace. To me, it's important to keep going."