Washington Irving Elementary School teachers Roxanne Adams, left, and Renee Lyons retired at the end of this school year.
Two longtime teachers have retired from the Durant School District with the close of the 2012-2013 school year.
Roxanne Adams, third-grade teacher, at Washington Irving Elementary, began her teaching career in 1979 and retired with 34 years in the profession in 2013. She taught her first five years in the Coalgate Public Schools.
Adams completed her student teaching at WI and didn’t know at that time she would return in 1984 and remain there for 29 years. Having a Master’s Degree in Reading Specialist she was hired for the first three years to teach Remedial Reading. She was then given the opportunity to teach third grade where she has remained for the past 26 years. Chris and Drew, her sons, are both alumni of Washington Irving and graduates of Durant High School. Adams says she is like most retirees and she doesn’t see retiring as the end but a new adventure and chapter in her life. She says she and her husband, Tex, will start checking items off of their “bucket list” which will include lots of travel and attending sporting events.
Renee Lyons began her teaching career and has taught second grade for the past 27 years at Washington Irving Elementary School. She grew up and graduated high school in Wapanucka, and she also did her student teaching there.
As a student at Southeastern she met and married John Lyons and moved to Durant where she would apply for her first teaching position. She attributes her desire to be an educator to her fifth-grade teacher, who she says had a knack for making the learning experience fun. Her two children, Bradley and Rebecca, spent their elementary years at Washington Irving and graduated Durant High School.
Mrs. Lyons says you might think teaching the same grade level material might become boring, but it’s not the material that makes the classroom it is the students that come each year with new challenges and fresh ideas that make the profession rewarding. She doesn’t know what to expect from retirement but she knows one thing she is going to miss the interaction in her second grade classroom and with her co-workers.
As a Washington Irving "alumni", Class of 1952 it is nice the know there are still teachers that have a "long term" comment to their profession and students.
My first grade teacher was not only my "first crush", but she became a close family fiend in the later years. I'm sure you will have students that will remember you for years to come. Trust me, they have learned more than what was in their books.
Again, congratulations and have a wonderful retirement.
Robert,
robert@durantok.net