Mid-Del group salutes longtime teachers

By Eric Bradshaw, staff writer
The Sun

May 09, 2008 11:45 am

— After 43 years of teaching at the same school, Earl Gentry is retiring.
Gentry was among a host of teachers and patrons recognized at a National Teacher Day ceremony put on by the Mid-Del Association of Classroom Teachers.
According to Jamie McCoy, Mid-Del ACT president, schools are beginning to see teachers quit even before the five-year mark. But the 45 teachers who were recognized Tuesday had taught for at least 10 years and many had taught for more than 30.
Gentry said the secret to succeeding as a teacher is to love your students. The Kerr Middle School teacher has attended funerals, visited hospitals and bought Christmas presents for his students over the years.
If you make a genuine effort to prove that you care about your students, they will respond, he said.
“I have always been excited about going to work,” Gentry said.
The types of students the middle school teacher sees has changed over the years but Gentry’s interaction hasn’t.
“Kids may change but the purpose and the mission never dies,” he said.
Linda Harrison, who has spent 35 years teaching, said she never even thought of quitting until recently.
“I never thought about quitting. It (teaching) was just something I wanted to do,” the Soldier Creek Elementary School teacher said.
Gayle Fischer, another retiring teacher, was born the same year Del City High School was built.
“I’ve been there since I was 15 years old (as a student then a teacher for 34 years),” Fischer said.
Two college students who are earning teaching degrees also were recognized and presented with $500 checks.
Michelle Lawrence, who was present to receive her check, is a Midwest City High School graduate who just finished her last day of student-teaching at Carl Albert High School. She will graduate from the University of Central Oklahoma and hopes to teach family and consumer sciences in the Mid-Del school district.
“That’s where I would like to end up. (I’m) just waiting to see what comes open,” she said.
Patrons or volunteers who help out at the schools also were recognized. Don Pritchett, for example, was nominated by East Side Elementary School because of a number of donations and volunteer projects. One was helping three students and their parents, who had been displaced by a house fire.
McCoy, who worked in the Mid-Del district for 27 years, has been with the ACT for nine years. She said that the organization negotiates and advocates on behalf of teachers and, of course, recognizes their achievements.

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