YOU don't have to have known Mike Caudle long to realise he's one of those special teachers.
Without children of his own, his eyes dance when talks of his "kids" the thousands of them he has nurtured through Margaret River Senior High School over the past 30 years.
And the kids love him back.
Some years ago his year 12 students presented him with a plaque which still makes his heart sing. It says: "To Mr Caudle, a teacher all other teachers aspire to."
This week staff and students surprised the history specialist with a morning tea and a cheeky tribute to his trademark mo - a "thank you" for his three decades of dedication to the school.
"For a long time now I have been teaching the kids of kids I taught in the early years. I don't think I'm teaching any grandkids yet but they're not far off," Mr Caudle said. "I'm always running into people down the street who I used to teach and they still call me Mr Caudle.
"I tell them 'you don't have to call me Mr Caudle any more, you can call me Sir'."
He has the dad jokes down pat.
Born in Collie and raised in Bunbury, Mr Caudle's first posting was to Morawa in the Wheatbelt.
But it wasn't long before he transferred to Margaret River.
It was here he proposed to his wife Beverley, now a teacher at Karridlale Primary School, via an advertisement in the Mail.
"She made me wait until the next week's edition for her reply," he said.
"There were a couple of other ads in there from women who said: 'if she won't take you, we will.'"
Along with his moustache, colleagues say Mr Caudle is known for his humour and for pranking his students.
But he did not always have such an enduring role in his pupils' lives.
Until 1995 the school did not have senior status and students left town for schooling beyond year 10.
"We used to send these kids off to Busselton Senior High School and so many of them would get dux and so on and we knew the hard work was being done by the primary school and ourselves," he said.
"When we became a senior high school it was most rewarding because we got to see all these young people turn into these incredible adults."
He has seen a huge demographic change at the school since the 1980s, when most of the students were from local farms and rural industries.
Then it was a small school where "everyone knew everyone".
He earned a reputation as a thrill-seeker among a group of teachers who conjured up wildly adventurous school trips to Asia, or the snow, for families who would never have left WA.
"Kids don't get much of a childhood any more, they are just a lot more worldly due to multi-media, and many of them are living through some pretty tough circumstances" he said.
"This place should be like a 'barlees' tree.
"When the children walk on to the school grounds it should be a safe, caring environment. We need to do everything we can possibly do to get them where they want to be and to develop them as much as we can.
"When you do that, the kids give you a lot of acknowledgement.
"They basically say 'thank you for caring about what I am doing and what I want to be'."
Far from the stereotype, Mr Caudle says he is forever amazed at the resilience and caring his teenage students demonstrate.
It is his genuine love of teaching which has kept him in Margaret River.
"I have been lucky enough to receive promotions here without having to move away. I could have taken other opportunities but that would have taken me out of the classroom. For me, that's where I can make a real difference.
"I will probably retire here, if they let me."
And that mo?
"It's just part of who I am. I've only ever shaved it off once. I'd told my students that if they could all better their mock exam marks in the TEE I'd shave it off," he said.
"They came close a few times, then one year they all actually did it. I shaved it off in front of the whole school."
Next year Mr Caudle will take some well-earned long-service leave.