This is her 14th year teaching at West Middle School, but her 38th year teaching!  She loves to work with middle school kids, as their excitement for life is astounding and keeps her on the young side of life.She was born in Chicago, Illinois, but raised in a southern suburb, the first planned communite in the USA, which is featured at the Smithsonian Institue in Washington D.C., called Park Forest. She attended the University of Illinois in Champain/Urbana back in the hippie days, although she was not a hippie. Joined Kappa Delta sorority as well as began her studies in geology, but changed to elementaryeducation.

After marrying a farmer,  her first job was teaching 4th grade in a little farming town, Minooka, Ill, where she found out that she was good at teaching reading and writing. She taught there for 3 years then stayed home to raise her son, Samuel, and daughter Katie. She homeschooled them for a few years and returned to teaching 2nd grade, then 6-12 at a behavior disorder school, then 6 grade reading and writing Troy Jr. High in Shorewood, Il. 

 Three years after her divorse, and the death of her father, she met Bob and his son Cameron. Once married, the whole family, 5 of them now, moved to Ft. Myers FL to help out her mother. She taught special education for a while, then moved to an 6th grade ELA position.  There she earned her National Board Certification, and has kept current ever since. After her mother passed, she moved to Asheville , NC, teaching 7th grade ELA and Social Studies. The next year she, husband Bob, and sons Sam and Cam moved to Colorado Springs, where where she began teaching ELA in the gifted SAIL program, then mainstream 6th ELA, then science. Back to ELA this year and a little science. 

She is a classically trained pianists, starting to play when she was in 2nd grade! She also plays keyboard with her family band, growing her own vegetables and flowers, sews her own dresses, draws and oil paints, and keeps up on the scientific research online.

She thinks that  the distance learning mode is a real challenge for the entire country.  We all need to be looking out for each other and we will end out better than ever!