Saying goodbye

Four longtime White County Central employees reflect on careers

Connie Miller, from front, Tonia Piker, Debbie Stanley and Paula Cleveland will retire from the White County Central School District this year. The four employees have a combined 128 years of experience.
Connie Miller, from front, Tonia Piker, Debbie Stanley and Paula Cleveland will retire from the White County Central School District this year. The four employees have a combined 128 years of experience.

Graduation ceremonies signify the end of students’ high school careers, but the end of the school year is also a time for some school faculty and staff to end their professional careers through retirement. In the White County Central School District, four longtime employees with a combined 128 years of work will retire after the final bell rings on the last day of school.

Paula Cleveland, Connie Miller,

Tonia Piker and Debbie Stanley will all retire this year after long careers with the school district. Cleveland, who is currently the food service director for the district, has worked for White County Central for 36 years. Miller teaches fifth-grade math, science and physical education. She has spent her entire 28-year career in the district. Piker has taught at White County Central schools for 32 years and is currently a reading interventionist. Stanley teaches fourth grade and has been teaching for 33 years — 29 in White County Central schools.

Additionally, Cleveland and Miller graduated from the school district when they were in school.

“One thing I learned was this community is built around this school,” Piker said, reflecting back on her early years with the school district. “It was amazing to me. … I can remember Stanley Gibson — who was superintendent here who hired me — he was sitting at the lunch table one day, and he said, ‘You’re going to find out this is a family. This isn’t just a school; it’s a family.’”

Piker agreed with Gibson initially, but she said she really saw that family aspect shine through the longer she worked with the district.

“You know that when there’s a birth, a death, a sickness, people will be there,” she said.

Of course, those close relationships reach beyond faculty and staff. With all of the time spent with children, school employees often form close relationships with their students.

“I have one that attached to me last year in kindergarten,” Miller said. “Every day, he’d just look up to me and say, ‘We’re just like peas and carrots.’ It’s just amazing.”

At graduation this year, Miller said, a former student who was no longer in school made a special point to find her so he could thank his former teacher for all she had taught him.

“He said, ‘I couldn’t walk by you without coming and giving you a hug because I love you,’” Miller said. “He’s been out of school a couple of years, and he told me he had done some bad things. I told him we all have, and he said, ‘I’m going to straighten up.’”

Stanley said she is retiring after teaching a special group of children. She taught the same group of children last year in third grade and had the opportunity to move up with them to fourth grade.

“That was so good because I knew them and their parents,” she said. “That’s why I said I had to quit with them. I feel like they belong to me. … I’ve had five different groups of girls make me posters that are up in my hall. They’ve used glitter and glue and everything. It’s great to just think that they care enough to spend their time to do that. Sometimes we forget that they get attached to us just like we get attached to them.”

Cleveland may not have a classroom where she interacts with the students for hours every day, but she makes an effort to get to know students throughout the district.

“Any child who writes her a letter, she writes them a letter back and often puts candy or stickers in it,” Piker said. “She did all of that out of her pocket.”

Students look forward to Ms. Paula letters, Piker said, and many kids offer to help clean the lunch room in order to stand out to Cleveland.

“It’s a place they can come where they don’t have to sit in their seats and learn their lessons and all of that. It’s kind of a free time when they’re there,” Cleveland said. “One of the things I’m going to miss is the first day of school when the old preschoolers come over to kindergarten. I always love that first week. Some of them were crying and some of them wanted their mommas, but by the end of the week, they’ve learned that

momma was going to be there at the end of the day.”

A public reception honoring Cleveland, Miller, Piker and Stanley will be held from 4-5:30 p.m. Thursday at White County Central High School.

Staff writer Angela Spencer can be reached at (501) 244-4307 or aspencer@arkansasonline.com.

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