Mrs. Donna Chaney is looking forward to dedicating more time to her family once she retires. Photo by: Patricia Ortiz
By Patricia Ortiz
On May 31st the Plymouth High School class of 2013 will experience their last day of high school. For several faculty members May 31st is the last day that they will be at PHS as teachers.
Mrs. Donna Chaney is one of the four teachers who will be retiring at the end of this year. After, 34 years of teaching at PHS she is hanging up her lab coat and moving on towards the next step in her life.
Mrs. Chaney decided to retire once she realized that her job was getting to be more demanding. She was working 12-14 hour work days. The hours that she dedicated to her job were so long because, “it is the time the job demands to do it well.” All this demand from her job gave her little time to dedicate to her family.
Mrs. Chaney’s husband was “relieved” that she was retiring so that she could dedicate more time to their home. She says that after 34 years of “dedicated life to Plymouth Community Schools it is time to dedicate my life to my family while I still can. While I still have my health.”
Like the majority of those who are retiring Mrs. Chaney has plans for the next step in her life. She says she is “looking forward to the next career the one career that God has planed for me. I don’t know what that is and in the mean time I need to keep searching for that educating myself [and] getting ready, keep my eyes open, keep my ears open and I know there is something out there for me that I will be directed to.”
“I’ll miss the interaction with the kids, definitely. The camaraderie with the staff,” are some of the things that Mrs. Chaney will miss once she leaves the halls of PHS.
Just like there are happy parts to retiring there are also difficult parts to retiring. For Mrs. Chaney the most difficult part about retiring would be the uncertainty of finances. “Not knowing whether you are financially stable enough,” to retire.
The joys of teaching can range from interacting with students to getting to know each student individually. The joys of teaching are different for every teacher. For Mrs. Chaney the best part about teaching is seeing the success of her students. She likes to see her students succeed and come back to the community, “and put back into the community.”
Once Mrs. Chaney retires she plans on not only spending more time with her family but also dedicating time to her garden or “riding on top of the big Kaboda tractor around the property but also to be more active and involved with the church. Whatever they need me to do.” She said she has no clear cut plan but the one thing she knows for certain she will do after retirement is spend more time with her family. Mrs. Chaney says that she is, “open to what the day will bring.”
Mrs. Chaney’s parting words to her colleagues and her students is that, “Life is a challenge,” and that they need to take on that challenge.
Mrs. Chaney will surely be missed because she taught many students that, “Chemistry is a Foreign Language.”