Stumbled upon this news out of Alaska.
After 33 years and one of what he described as his best years in the classroom, Hal Neace is calling it quits. Sort of.
Retiring from the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District, the former Homer Middle School science teacher will take a three-month break, during which he'll travel and spend time with out-of-state family. After that, Neace shifts his focus from students to instructors, becoming a mentor for first-year teachers across the state through a University of Alaska Fairbanks program.
As a youngster on the family ranch in Washington state, Neace spent his childhood outdoors, thanks to the influence of his parents, Lawrence Neace and Anna Belle Edmonson, and his maternal grandparents, Harold and Della Hopkins. He graduated from the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma in 1968, with a bachelor's degree in political science and a minor in biology, but "never, ever considered education," he said of a possible career choice.
While at UPS, Neace did become interested in philosophy.
"There was lots of social activism," he said of the 1960s and his admiration for individuals such as John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Kennedy's brother, Robert. "It looked to me like there was enough unrest in the country and I thought I'd serve another way."
That "way" was as an American Peace Corps volunteer. From 1968-1970, Neace served as an agricultural extension agent in West Bengal, India, a "life changing" experience that awakened his love of science and a hunger to teach....
Read the whole thing here.
