If you’ve been around Booneville long enough to be associated with a high school student it is likely Rebecca Knight has had an impact on your life.
“If they’ve been in Booneville any length of time I’ve had them, their children, and even sometimes grandchildren,” Knight said last week.
Today, Knight embarks on her 50th year of teaching – all for the Booneville School District. The first to go through her Room 54 door for her first period Spanish II class this morning were nine students, including junior Jace Washburn (shown below with Knight).
Washburn’s mother, Amy (Swint), was also a student. His grandfather, Russell Swint, was a senior when Knight came home to Booneville High School as a teacher.
Home because in 1968 Knight graduated from BHS. She was walking the halls of Booneville High when Rudey Wooldridge, the grandfather of Emily Wooldridge (below), another of this morning’s first period students, was doing the same.
Besides Washburn and Wooldridge, there are countless other second and third generation students Knight has crossed paths with over half of a century.
During that time Knight has taught two languages courses, English and Spanish. In fact she is the only certified Spanish teacher the district has ever had.
Currently the English students she sees are seniors, but Knight has taught every grade level from eighth through 12th during her tenure.
She has also taught in every high school the district has had since the one she attended, starting with the school that ran north and south along Kennedy Avenue.
“The old building they tore down that I graduated from was the one I started teaching in. I taught on the end of that building and started teaching eighth grade English, one section of speech to seniors, and 11th grade, what they called, communications then, “ said Knight.
Knight said she never cared for the supposed shortcomings of students enrolled in what was perceived to be a lesser version of an English course.
“There were no AP classes or anything like that. (Communications) was supposed to be less intensive, but the kids came in saying ‘I’m in here because I’m dumb. I don’t do well in this,’” said Knight. “I said that is the first thing I will not accept. You’re not (dumb). You may be behind for various reasons, because you haven’t given it your attention like you should have, but you are all capable and we will pull this out.”
In the fall of the 1977-1978 school year a new high school opened on Eighth Street and Knight moved there into what was called the junior high wing.
It was in that building Knight added the Spanish to her resume, thanks to then principal Pete Prewett.
“I went down to his office and he said ‘Ms. Knight I was looking through everybody’s files, and it seems that you can teach Spanish,’” said Knight. “I had no idea why he called me down there.”
That alone was cause for concern.
“I loved Pete Prewett as a person and as my boss. I had what I have always called respectful fear of him. Most people loved him in spite of a fear of him,” said Knight.
After that meeting with Prewett the school district switched from offering French to Spanish.
“We had a French teacher who lived at Greenwood and she taught a while next door to me, but she went on to do something else,” said Knight. “We really have never had a large enough student population to accommodate two years of two different foreign languages. Scheduling is impossible.”
Knight told Prewett she hadn’t even opened a Spanish book for about 12 years.
“He said ‘I’ll tell you I need a Spanish teacher and I’d like for you to be it, in addition to your English duties,’” said Knight. “From that point on I’ve taught Spanish.”
That began with the seniors who would graduate in 1982, who incidentally were the last class to have attended at least one year in the building on Kennedy Avenue.
While it was not easy, Knight actually had to tell Prewett no in a meeting the next year, when he wondered if it were possible to add Spanish II, which she does teach, but have both groups of students together in the same class.
In 1997 the current high school opened and Knight moved again, continuing teaching both English and Spanish.
Now having reached the magical number of 50, will Knight call it a career when the school year ends in May? Even she doesn’t know yet.
“I haven’t made that decision. I’m taking it one year at a time,” Knight said last week prior to an in-service day for teachers. “When I actually got near 50 I thought, I don’t want to stop working. Obviously I enjoy what I do and it just hasn’t felt that it was the right time, that I felt I wanted, or needed to retire.
“Unless physically or mentally something happens to me to change that, I don’t know, but I’m going to work through this year and see where I am.”
Knight admits she is curious how many educators spend not just 50 years in the profession, but do so in a single location, let alone the one from which the educator also graduated.
“It’s not like it’s some badge of honor to think of it that way,” she said. “Teachers have taught that many years or more but most of them move around. In a larger district like Little Rock or something where they’ve moved from one district to another.
“My sister taught at Pulaski County and then she taught in North Little Rock. Or even Madeline Green when she taught here, she had also taught in Oklahoma.”
Over the summer Knight learned of an elementary teacher in Northwest Arkansas who is set to retire at the end of this year, her 61st.
“I thought, gosh I’ve got to do 12 more,” she laughs. “There’s an older man in another state who’s taught a bazillion years so I thought 50 doesn’t seem like all that much.”
Knight’s career has spanned the chalk board to the white boards to today’s computer and or web-based smart boards, along with Google classroom and communication through QR-Code links. The old school has its advantages she says.
“Frankly I’d rather have chalkboard than the white boards because the black you have to write with as opposed to chalk dust. Chalk dust will come out of your clothes, off the walls, wherever it gets,” said Knight. “And that black stuff that’s left behind from the marker stains and it’s almost impossible to remove.”
It is the same with the supplies progressing from mimeograph machines, both the manual crank then an electric version, to copiers, to today’s, again, computer or web-based assessments or homework handouts.
The half century in the classroom has also made, on multiple occasions, former students become colleagues.
“Donnie Glover was my student. Theresa (Fereck) Brown was my student. Karen (Boggs) Halford was my student,” said Knight. “Beth (Tomlin) Miesner was my student. Trent Goff was my student.”
Brown has had a long career herself with Booneville Schools and is studying retirement, Halford has already turned in her keys after a career as a teacher and librarian, Miesner (with night below) is just down the hall and Goff – the middle of another three generation family with his father Steve and sons Ty and Dax – is now the superintendent of the district and her boss.
Like superintendents Knight has seen principals come and go over the years and is currently overseen by Amy Goers, who cannot imagine not having Knight.
“Ms. Knight is such a treasure to all of us at Booneville High School,” said Goers. “Walking down our halls and seeing all of the generations that she has helped to mold is so amazing. We love her!”
That brings her career full circle because when Knight started teaching, some of her then colleagues like Harry Culps, June Culps, and Lavonne Strickland had been her teachers.
Over five decades the students Knight sees have shared her Baby Boomer generation designation, been from Gen X, been classified Millennials or Gen Y, called Gen Z, and today’s Generation Alpha.
As such she has seen it all in terms of fashion changes, musical shifts, transportation advances, and, of course, technology breakthroughs, and how each affects a teenager.
“They’re still kids,” she insists but asked which changes have been the hardest to address as a teacher, it would be the later.
Not so much the devices themselves, but the obsessiveness and or addictiveness accompanying devices such as cellphones.
Knight has also been on hand to see her students win state titles in various sports, and to, unfortunately deal with multiple tragedies to have befallen other students who did not complete their high school years.
She has seen students go on to work in industries or careers that would allow them to stay home and raise the children see sees daily as well as others go on to careers in the military, NASA, engineering and more, including, of course, education.