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School counselor's guidance reached far beyond students

Whether it was her friends, her family, even her boss, Connie Fast-Koser, who died of cancer, ensured that everyone she encountered stayed well.

By MICHELE MILLER
Published September 27, 2006

Connie Fast-Koser knew how to laugh and how to comfort those who couldn't. She knew the importance of creating special moments, yet delighted in letting them happen on their own. She loved to be outside - especially bicycling through Florida, Vermont and Maine and attending outdoor music festivals, whether it be classical or the blues.

Still, there was the love of culture that often took her indoors to museums and Broadway shows.

She was a wonderful wife, said her husband, David Koser, 55.

"Being with her was a joy. She saw the beauty no matter where she was," he said.

"She was the perfect mother," said her son, Bryan Fast, 25, "my closest confidant and my biggest fan."

After a two-year struggle with cancer, Mrs. Fast-Koser died Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2006, at her New Port Richey home. She was 54.

Her death came only three months and three days after she and David married at St. Timothy Lutheran Church in Tarpon Springs.

For 20 years, Mrs. Fast-Koser served as a guidance counselor in Pasco schools. Before that, she worked at Pasco-Hernando Community College and had a private practice as a licensed mental health counselor, which she gave up so she could raise her son, Koser said.

While her home base over the years might have been at Hudson, Bayonet Point or Seven Springs middle schools, Mrs. Fast-Koser was widely known in schools throughout the county.

She wrote and co-wrote many of the district's guidance training manuals, whether they were on grief support, body image, relationships, bullying, career development or how to make a positive transition from middle to high school.

"Connie was in touch with what was going on in the school or in the nation. She knew the issues that adolescents had to deal with," said Seven Springs Middle School principal Chris Christoff, who worked with Mrs. Fast-Koser for the past 11 years.

Mrs. Fast-Koser was often the one to head up the crisis teams that went into other schools, said her supervisor and best friend, Cathy Rapp.

"She had an almost instant affinity with people - students, parents, faculty," said Rapp, whose favorite memory of her friend is singing Jimmy Buffett's Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes at the top of their lungs while biking up Maine's Cadillac Mountain.

"Connie taught us how to get through difficult times," Christoff said. "Her life prepared us for this."

A divorced parent, Mrs. Fast-Koser knew the importance of keeping an open dialogue with youngsters, whether at school or at home.

"She was very involved in my life," Fast said. "She was always there for soccer practice, and she took me fishing. Sometimes she would fish. Sometimes we'd talk, and I'd fish for hours and hours."

That kind of nurturing was as important when it came to the students she knew who were dealing with issues that could adversely affect their education.

That's why she started student support groups at Bayonet Point Middle School in 1993.

"There's a strong need for these groups," she said in 1994 in the St. Petersburg Times.

And while she was there for the students, her superiors learned that they could lean on her as well.

"She became the counselor to her boss in many instances," said Max Ramos, who hired Mrs. Fast-Koser when he was the principal at Hudson Middle School. "During the time I was at Hudson Middle, I lost my mother one year and my father the very next year. I ... dealt with the lengthy illnesses and hospitalizations. I had never encountered loss like this before. She really assisted me in getting through that."

The last two years of Mrs. Fast-Koser's life were largely taken up by her own cancer treatments.

Still, she remained positive most of the time, her son said.

"She wasn't going to give in. She wasn't going to let it get her down," Fast said.

"She was going to beat it right up till two days before she left," Koser said.

"I'm horribly sad that we weren't able to live a lot of our dreams."

Still, there's hope that the spirit of Mrs. Fast-Koser will live on through a scholarship in her name that will be given to a student or a guidance counselor looking to further his or her education.

Rapp came up with the idea and presented it to Mrs. Fast-Koser's husband and son.

"We said, 'That's perfect,' " Koser said. "She would just love that."

[Last modified September 27, 2006, 07:54:00]