Long-term employees retire
Staff writer
Several school district employees at Centre are retiring at the end of the school year.
Marci Cain of Marion is retiring after 32 years. She taught fifth and sixth-grade students.
She said making the computer work with a TV was the greatest challenge, along with remote teaching during the past year.
She and her husband, Russ, are planning to travel. They also will be spending time at a dock they own at Marion County Lake.
Cain will continue to flip houses with friends.
Jamie Peterson of Burdick has been a special education para at Centre for 24 years.
She has worked in kindergarten through sophomore science and English classrooms.
“I often helped any students who asked for it,” she said.
When she first started, she found out that math teaching had changed from when she was in school. She had to learn a new way of teaching the subject.
Helping launch art classes at Centre is a fond memory. She got involved with an after-school art program instigated by Superintendent Demitry Evancho. The next year it was incorporated into the school day.
“I loved helping with art,” she said.
The experience led her to become an artist herself. She paints water colors.
Peterson also was an assistant cheer leading sponsor for several years.
She said she considered getting a teaching degree, but living in a remote rural area made it difficult.
“There were no online classes back then,” she said.
She credits her husband Phil’s job as a mail carrier with allowing her to be a para-educator.
Janis Peterson of Burdick has been a part-time teacher at Centre since 2007. She teaches seventh- and eighth-grade geography and history.
Originally a teacher in Louisiana, she said, “I fell in love with a Kansas cowboy 27 years ago.”
Her husband, Galen “Pete” Peterson, died five years ago.
She said her biggest challenge as a teacher was keeping up with technology.
“”We went from overhead projectors to document cameras and from calculators to computers.”
The retirees said they have enjoyed teaching several generations of the same families.