A popular bumper sticker says, "If you can read this, thank a teacher." Students at Chaska Elementary School can thank Emmaline Therres, who for more than 30 years came up with creative lessons to make sure her students could read.

"She was an exceptional language arts teacher and knew how to teach reading very well," said Roger Hunt, the school's principal.

Therres died on April 2 at St. Francis Regional Medical Center in Shakopee of progressive supranuclear palsy, a rare degenerative disease involving the gradual deterioration and death of specific areas of the brain. She was 66.

Therres went to great lengths to be sure her second-graders grasped the skill of reading. After they read about the adventures of the fictional "Miss Rumphius," she planned corresponding activities, such as making cherry pies and planting lupine flowers in the school's outdoor garden.

"She tried to have the students relate to what they were reading and not just read a word on the page," said Mary Mobeck, a 20-year friend and a third-grade teacher at Chaska Elementary.

Loved by students and respected by peers, Therres was considered an outstanding teacher in District 112 and served on many school committees, Hunt said. She was a nominee for Minnesota Teacher of the Year and won awards for her work with disabled students, said retired teacher and friend Joan Schultz.

Born in Litchfield, Minn., she grew up on a farm in Cedar Mills, Minn., and was active in 4-H, said her husband of 37 years, Leonard, of Chaska. She graduated from Hutchinson High School in the early 1960s and earned a bachelor's degree in education from University of Minnesota-Morris. She earned her master's degree from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities.

She took her first teaching job in Glencoe, Minn., then moved to Chaska Elementary in 1969 and taught in the Eastern Carver County School District until she retired in 2000. From 1991 to 1993, she was an adjunct professor in reading and language arts at Augsburg College in Minneapolis.

Therres was president of the Council of Catholic Women and was a longtime member of Guardian Angels Catholic Church in Chaska. She was a board member of the Carver County Historical Society.

She volunteered at the Korean Culture Camp at Minnehaha Academy in Minneapolis and made sure her adopted daughter, Kimberly, learned about her native South Korean culture, family members said.

In addition to her husband, Therres is survived by her daughter, Kimberly, of Minneapolis; two stepsons, James Therres of South St. Paul and Roger Therres of Chaska; two brothers, Harold Schlueter of Bertha, Minn., and Eugene Schlueter, of Willmar, Minn.; three sisters, Mary Reitz of Chaska, Janice Sutter of Hutchinson, Minn., and Eileen Hardin of Ramsey, and two step-grandchildren.

Services have been held.