'It's going to be different': Cindy Derr was the heartbeat of Clark Fork

CLARK FORK — Cindy Derr was more — so much more — than just a volleyball coach.

She was a mentor, a mother, an aunt, a grandma and the heartbeat of an entire town.

Cindy’s legacy and name is forever etched in the minds of anyone who passed through Clark Fork over the past six decades. Cindy was Clark Fork and Clark Fork was Cindy, and the two will always be connected.

On March 5, Cindy passed away at the age of 65. In the weeks that have followed, the small town and surrounding areas have tried to cope with losing someone who not only lived life to the fullest, but poured everything she had into the place she called home.

Bidding farewell is never easy and it’s something that the community of Clark Fork is struggling with.

“It’s a definite hole,” said Phil Kemink, Clark Fork Junior/Senior High School principal and athletic director. “She had a place here and … it’s going to be different.”

Cindy, a 1973 CFHS grad, coached volleyball for over 30 years and a majority of those years were spent in Clark Fork. In 1997, she took over as the head coach of the high school volleyball team and brought the program unprecedented success.

In her second season, the team placed third at state. Clark Fork also grabbed a second-place trophy in 2000 and third in 2002. Cindy led the team to five straight state appearances from 1998-2002 and not too long after that, her first stint at the helm came to a close.

Her second stint as the head coach lasted from 2013-2018. After that, her niece, Michelle Valliere, took over the job. Cindy “retired” in 2019 and was an assistant on Valliere’s staff before stepping away from the sport last year due to health issues.

Valliere was a junior on the ‘98 Clark Fork team that captured a state trophy. She said Cindy had a great ability to have fun as a coach while also keeping her players in line and teaching them lessons that translated to life beyond volleyball.

“She genuinely cared about every single girl that she coached,” Valliere said.

Over the years, Cindy helped countless athletes earn college scholarships. She would go out of her way to make kids’ dreams come true and used her countless connections in the sport to get them to the next level.

Valliere experienced that commitment firsthand when she earned an opportunity to play volleyball at North Idaho College.

“I wouldn’t have gone and played college ball if it wasn’t for her, there’s no way,” she said about Cindy. “She sees the potential in girls and pushes them to be better, and she gives them avenues to make themselves better.”

When Cindy wasn’t coaching the high school squad, she was spending time at the club level fostering the next generation of volleyball stars. She started Clark Fork’s first offseason program, the Clark Fork Juniors Volleyball Club. She coached that team off-and-on for years and got involved in the club scene in Sandpoint as well.

Valliere coached side by side with her aunt for about six years and she said Cindy inspired her to get into the profession.

Cindy was a mentor to so many and she was always willing to share her knowledge of the sport with others, Valliere said.

“She was such a good teacher of how to coach the sport,” she said. “I definitely would not be the coach I am today without her because she was just so helpful. Any tool she had, she would give to you.”

Lyndsie Kiebert, who played for Cindy in 2013, shared a similar sentiment.

“She was the person who took a chance on me at 21 years old, fresh out of college and hoping to get into coaching,” she said. “... Now, coaching volleyball is where I feel most myself, and I have her to thank for that.”

Kiebert was the assistant varsity coach for Clark Fork in 2017 and has coached the junior varsity team the past three years.

Kiebert said Cindy lived and breathed volleyball, it was a part of who she was. Cindy dedicated so much of her time to finding ways to help her players, Kiebert said, from new drills to offseason sessions to talented guest coaches. She did whatever it took to put kids in the best position to succeed.

As a player, Kiebert said Cindy instilled endless confidence in the team by believing in everyone on the court.

“Cindy let me be myself, and trusted me to lead the team,” she said. “She knew I would do what it took to win and leave it all on the court. That kind of trust isn't something you see with every coach.”

When the news spread through the community that Cindy had passed, everyone was devastated.

“It’s heartbreaking,” Kemink said.

Cindy was diagnosed with kidney cancer in 2005. She battled the disease off and on for the rest of her life. She also fought trigeminal neuralgia, which is a condition that affects the trigeminal nerve that carries sensation from the face to the brain and can cause recurring periods of intense, short-lived spasms of pain in the face and jaw.

Cindy faced those obstacles head-on and never let them stop her from doing what she loved.

Her brother, Mark Stevens, said it was difficult to watch his sister go through so much pain, but she never gave up in part because of the kids..

“She loved the kids so much,” he said, “that a lot of times that’s what drove her to overcome a lot of this pain was being able to be around the kids and in the gym.”

Outside of coaching, Cindy left her mark as well. In 1978, she started working for the school district and was the secretary at CFHS for a number of years. She also worked at McFarland Cascade, Kaniksu Realty, Pape Machinery and Panhandle Special Needs.

Cindy reffed her fair share of volleyball matches during her time with the North Idaho Officials Association and was inducted into the Hall of Fame for volleyball referees.

But coaching was her calling and Stevens said Cindy’s competitiveness drove her to be on the sidelines for so long.

Stevens became the varsity coach for the Clark Fork girls basketball team in the mid-’90s, just a few years prior to Cindy taking over the volleyball program. He saw similar success, carrying his team to state five straight times in nine seasons, but was unable to match Cindy’s collection of state trophies.

He said he would always tease his sister about how much easier volleyball was than basketball because you only had to worry about one side of the court. That sibling rivalry and the occasional friendly jab is what Stevens loved so much about getting to coach at Clark Fork at the same time as Cindy. He said they constantly leaned on each other for advice.

“Her and I were always pretty competitive on who was getting to state and how we were doing,” he said. “It was always good to have and I know she enjoyed being able to call me and talk about coaching stuff. Her and I communicated all the time.”

Kemink worked with Cindy for about a decade and he said she had a special connection with every kid who walked through CFHS and the entire community.

“She was very persistent at making the team the best they could be,” he said. “The kids loved her because she pushed them harder than they would push themselves.”

Cindy spearheaded the most successful sports program in recent memory at Clark Fork, just ask the other coaches in the league during that time, Kemink said.

“If you look at our trophy case, it would say the same thing, too,” he said.

Valliere said Cindy’s impact and reach can be seen through the amount of messages of support she has received since her passing. Valliere said it’s truly remarkable how many people Cindy motivated and uplifted during her lifetime.

“There’s so many people out there that I know that she touched that care about her,” she said. “She had something because just the overwhelming response to her passing has been crazy.”

Cindy epitomized Wampus Cat pride and her memory lives on.

“I know we'll be feeling her absence for a long time,” Kiebert said.

A celebration of life will be held at Clark Fork High at 2 p.m. Saturday and people in attendance are encouraged to wear blue and gold.

Stevens said he gets emotional just thinking about the event, but he knows the countless memories and stories that will be shared will be worth the tears.