Teacher leaves with 27 years of memories

Children tend to remember a special teacher or two from their childhood. It is no different for teachers to remember their students, and for those teachers who have taught for more than 27 years, like Kay Bishop, that list of students is extensive.

Bishop will retire this year from her position at Mill Creek Elementary. She taught everything from first through fifth grades since Mill Creek opened in 1988. And the one thing she will miss the most? The children.

“When you see kids who blossom … the impact that we have, I don’t think we’ll ever realize,” she said.

Bishop has worked as a reading specialist, aide librarian and classroom teacher since 1970. As a member of a military family, she traveled around the United States until settling in Everett in the late ’70s.

She received her bachelor’s degree from Eastern Washington University, and it was there that she realized she wanted to become a teacher, she said. While a student, she worked with special needs children in the campus school for children of professors and faculty at EWU. This was one of the turning points for her.

Bishop said her parents were always an important part of her support network. With her father in the Air Force, the family moved many times when she was young. After a particularly difficult fourth-grade year, Bishop said she told her parents she wanted to drop out of school, but they convinced her that would not be a good decision.

“My dad used to say they can take anything away from you except your education,” Bishop said.

Since then, she has affected many students. Bishop said she is thankful she has kept in contact with many of her previous students. She has attended two weddings, and last summer, when she and her husband, John, were traveling around the United States, she stayed the night with a couple of her former students.

Mill Creek principal Mary Ann Opperud first met Bishop in 1977, when the two were reading specialists together at Hawthorne Elementary School. This year is Opperud’s first year as the principal at Mill Creek.

Opperud described Bishop as being warm and caring but also firm with her students. She said she feels the students respond to that firmness and perform well because of it.

“She sets high expectations for her students and goes to no lengths to help them achieve those goals,” Opperud said.

Bishop is a member of a group of teachers who meet to talk about students who need extra assistance. The group brainstorms ways to help these children, Opperud said, and Bishop has been an effective group member. Opperud said she has been an excellent resource to many of the other teachers at Mill Creek.

Bishop and friends will celebrate her retirement during two separate parties June 11 and 12. Because of her close contact with her students, more than 250 of them were invited, and Bishop said she looks forward to seeing many of them there.

Upon retiring, Bishop said she would like to do more traveling. One of her goals is to visit and tour all of the state capitals in the United States. On last summer’s vacation, she visited between 18 and 20 capitals and traveled more than 10,000 miles.

She said she also is looking forward to visiting and traveling with her grandchildren, who live in Alabama, but she will miss returning to Mill Creek Elementary in the fall.