By BILL ALLEN
Staff Writer
Over 400 years of experience and service to Poplar Bluff R-I Schools were celebrated Tuesday in a reception held at the Westwood Center. The district honored 26 retiring employees.
Two retirees, in particular, were present to mark another milestone in their lifelong relationship.
Poplar Bluff natives, PBHS graduates and sisters Sheryl Talkington and Lori Tibbs look back on careers in education that have been challenging at times, but rewarding. Talkington is the current director of health services for the district, where she has worked for almost 27 years. Tibbs is a teacher at the Early Childhood Center and has been with the district for 28 years.
“When a teacher walks in a classroom, you just have such an array of different needs for kids, and what might be a need for one child is definitely not a need for another one,” Tibbs explained. “They all need different things. Just seeing those needs, and being able to meet those needs, being that person that they can confide in and feel confident in, know that they’re loved and taken care of, is just the most rewarding thing about teaching.
“Just knowing … we all have different needs and being a kind and helpful person to everyone is what I think I’ll take away from it, as well as understanding that everybody you know needs a role model in their life.”
Talkington looks back on her career fondly, noting how much has changed and how many people she has met.
“You take care of kids when you begin working in the district and now, we’re taking care of their kids,” she said. “I believe God put me here, he opened the right doors, and he closed the right doors, and I feel like he put me here to hopefully make a difference for somebody.”
Talkington had no idea how challenging her last year would actually be with the COVID pandemic emerging at the beginning of 2020.
“We started last February, and I saw it coming,” she said. “We were starting to deal with it then and I thought I was really prepared for this year, but there was nothing that could prepare us for this year at all.
“But the response by the school district has been really good. We haven’t had to close down even one day. We have pushed through and kept everybody safe as we could and everybody in school, which was our goal. I’m proud of that because it’s been a tough road.”
Tibbs, who has a master’s degree in early childhood education, can truly relate because she had to deal with four-year-olds in a remote learning capacity.
“Doing Zoom lessons with them was quite a challenge,” she said. “I felt like I worked harder on those at-home Zoom lessons than I ever did in the classroom, trying to keep their attention and … let them feel that sense of warmth, even though the world is turned upside down.”
There were several times that her class was quarantined, which was hard for students to understand.
“My students had to wear masks at some points in the year, which were not mandated for our program unless we had a quarantine situation,” she said. “To keep those masks on the four-year-old was a difficult thing to do, but they were troopers and were very receptive.
“We finished the year strong, and I think we’ll all be stronger for it.”
The sisters will face the upcoming school year with some melancholy to be sure, but they are also looking ahead to days filled with new possibilities.
“Right now, my plans are to stay retired,” Tibbs shared. “I like to travel and camp, and I love to fish, so that’s really what I’m going to do for a while.”
Talkington, who is a registered nurse, is unsure but thankful for what the future might bring.
“I’m going to take a break, and I’m not going to do much, but you know, there are all kinds of things that a nurse can do out there, so we’ll see,” she said. “My sister has taught here longer than I have, actually, and she’s retiring this year as well, so that is just the icing on the cake for me. We’re going out together.”