I grew up in Houston, Texas, attending Lutheran schools through High School. When I graduated from Concordia, my first call was to Immanuel Houston, where I taught second grade. After I married, we moved to Dallas for my husband’s job, and I taught for Dallas ISD. Eventually I retired from DISD, and accepted the fourth grade position here at Zion. My family and I enjoy going to museums, fossil hunting, and reading. My son and I like building robot models together. I also enjoy sewing and crafts.

I was attending Rice University in Houston when I decided to become a teacher. I earned my teaching certification from Concordia in Seward, Nebraska. After teaching second grade for several years, we moved to Dallas. While substitute teaching, I completed my master’s in education at North Texas State, then accepted a position first as a bilingual teacher and later as a gifted and talented teacher for Dallas ISD. While at DISD, I participated in Project TEAM, a science endorsement program from Concordia Austin. I also coached two robotics teams, managed an annual Family STEAM Night, worked with Science Fair, and presented at several state conferences about early grades robotics in the classroom. I retired from DISD, and am delighted to come back to Lutheran education. I am a volunteer for FIRST Robotics high school competitions, and a supporter of the Woodrow Wilson High School Robotics program.

When I began teaching, I never could have envisioned the variety of experiences into which God would place me. Over the years, I have taught in both traditional and year-round, mixed-age, and deaf education inclusion situations. I have had class in a converted band storage room and in a variety of portables. Most of my teaching has been in low-income schools with families that were often in crisis. Even now, as I returned to Lutheran education, God has commissioned and challenged me to teach both in-class and on-line students. No matter how difficult the situation may be, God has always led me through before, and I know that his grace will see me through this year as well. Just seeing my students every morning makes me happy and motivated to be the best I can be each day. I am their model for how we treat each other, for how we express our faith through our actions. If in fifteen years my students don’t remember what they studied in fourth grade, but they remember how to ask good questions, to find reliable answers, to defend what they know, to learn for themselves, and most of all, how to live a faithful, godly life, then I will have done everything I ever wanted to do as a teacher.