Hello

     As a young girl I played softball every chance I got, and I aspired to be a professional softball player. After several injuries, I soon realized that my dream of playing softball would end in high school. Thankfully, my passion for education began at an early age as I watched my aunt pour into her students’ day after day as a first-grade teacher. I helped her arrange her classroom every summer right before school started all while dreaming of the day that I could decorate my own classroom. I tossed around other career possibilities as I grew up, but I always had education in the back of my mind. When I graduated from high school in 2006, I started substitute teaching on days that I did not have college classes. I quickly learned that I did not want to be a regular early childhood education teacher like my aunt. This threw a wrench in my plans, but I continued with regular core classes mixing in some basic classes for other degrees. While those classes were interesting, they did not spark any new noteworthy career desires.

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     One afternoon, at my sister’s all-star softball game, we ran into my parents’ insurance agent, and he wanted to know all about my college endeavors and the plans I had for my future. I told him that I was really struggling to know what to do as I had always wanted to be an early childhood education teacher, but that substitute teaching had turned me against it. He asked me one of the most important questions I have ever been asked. He said, “what do you love doing so much that you would do it for free for the rest of your life?” It did not take me long to answer him with, “playing sports and working with children.” So, that began my journey of seeking a health and physical education degree.

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     In May 2011, I graduated from Valdosta State University with a bachelor’s degree in health and physical education. To stay close to my family for family members’ health reasons, I took a third-grade paraprofessional position in August of 2011 at a local elementary school. During my fourth year as a classroom paraprofessional, I was moved to a physical education paraprofessional position. During that same year, I began coaching middle school softball where I coached for four years. I never dreamed that I would stay a paraprofessional for eight years, but I still wanted to stay close to my family. After becoming frustrated because there were no health and physical education positions available close by, I started branching out by applying for and interviewing for other jobs. Those potential career changes always lead to dead ends.

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     One morning in March of 2020, I was called to the principal’s office to find my principal and our athletic director. He asked me if I wanted to be moved to a local middle school to become a middle school health teacher. Without skipping a beat, I answered, “yes sir.” For the following three years, I taught middle school health at that same middle school, and I got married in April of 2021. Marriage took me an hour and a half north of where I had always lived and opened the door to more school systems. I applied at several different schools and landed a middle school health and physical education position halfway between my new home and my hometown for the 2023-2024 school year. Teaching at those two different middle schools assisted me in finding a true passion helping middle school students navigate the sometimes-troublesome waters of middle school. I also began coaching softball again and I understood why those applications and interviews for jobs outside of education always turned up empty.  

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     For the 2025-2026 school year, I am now even closer to home teaching physical education at another middle school where I am also coaching middle school softball. While it has taken me a little longer to get where I want to be compared to others, I would not trade those years working with wonderful educators, living close to home, for anything. Those years allowed me to be there for my grandpa (who passed away in October of 2012), my cousin (who had brain surgery at the age of two and had to relearn how to walk and function normally), and my brother and sister-in-law (who lost an unborn child at 30 weeks). Those years also confirmed that education was where I was always meant to be. During my first year as a paraprofessional I worked with a third-grade student that asked me to be her mother. This was no random scenario because I had previously watched my volunteer firefighter dad place a sheet over her mother’s body due to a terrible wreck some seven years before. Had I not been patient, I would have never become her school mama, and I would have never stuck with education as a career.

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     Outside of education, I can be found working on do-it-yourself projects around the house. I am not afraid to tackle any project whether it be plumbing, electrical, woodworking, or landscaping. I grew up on a farm watching my dad work with his hands raising children, raising hogs, growing crops, and fixing anything and everything. That work ethic is instilled in me and I plan to instill the same qualities in my stepson, my nieces, my nephew, and any children that I may have personally or professionally.