Published: June 07, 2008 09:11 pm      

Georgetown-RF teachers say goodbye

Campbell, Lickfett share classroom memories

GEORGETOWN — This year the Georgetown-Ridge Farm School District will say goodbye to two educators who have decided to retire.

Both Marilyn Campbell, a special education teacher, and Dorothy Lickfett, a first-grade teacher, have been happy to call Pine Crest Elementary School a second home.

Marilyn Campbell

She knew she wanted to teach right out of high school, but becoming a hairstylist fit her early family life better. However, for Campbell, teaching was still in her future.

She began in the school system as a teaching assistant and once was transferred into a special needs classroom.

“That’s where I found my place,” she said.

Campbell got her bachelor’s degree in early childhood education and a master’s degree in special education from Eastern Illinois University.

“I’ve had one teaching job and this is it,” she said. “I was hired to start this class.”

Campbell’s class is a cross-categorical one that tailors learning to the special needs of the different students in the room. She has had as many as 19 in the class at one time, or as few as three.

Needs vary widely among her students with some in wheelchairs, some with language delays and some with behavioral struggles. All are of elementary age.

“The best part of my job is seeing students with special needs be successful,” she said. “That can be all the way from watching language development, to seeing students filtered back into the regular class setting successfully — both academically and behaviorally.”

Campbell said the hard part is letting go.

“I’m the only elementary teacher they’ve ever had,” she said. “They leave me. That’s the hard part.”

Now, it’s going to be the other way around. Campbell is the one leaving, ready for retirement and spending more time with family. Husband Charles, children Brad and Jill and four grandchildren who are very involved in sports will be keeping her busy in the area.

“It’s going to be really odd for me because this has been my life for 20 years,” Campbell said. “I’m still trying to get my head around it, but I’m looking forward to it.”

Dorothy Lickfett

With a background like home economic education, you could always expect that Dorothy Lickfett’s first-grade room would be decorated with passion.

“I like decorating, so I’ve always tried to have a bright cheerful room and type of atmosphere for the kids to come to each day and for me, too,” she said. “Sometimes, I spend more waking hours here.”

Lickfett has spent many hours during the past 16 years of teaching and five years before that substituting throughout the county.

Projects that have been special throughout the years include the annual gingerbread house display her class puts together. Not only do they build the edible homes, but they set them up as a village in the school office as a holiday display.

“They are always very proud of that,” she said.

Lickfett also does a unit on the Chinese New Year that is topped with a party where the students eat Chinese food with chopsticks, which is very exciting for them.

“That’s one of my goals, to create an interest in learning, to get an enthusiasm for education,” Lickfett said.

Other projects throughout the years have included making banana bread for Mother’s Day and cooking cranberries at Thanksgiving.

“Some kids haven’t seen fresh cranberries,” she said.

Lickfett said she likes to watch the progression in the children.

“I like seeing the way students develop over the course of a year in the classroom and you see them develop socially and academically,” she said. “And at this age, they are so willing and enthusiastic about learning.”

Lickfett already has plans to visit family this summer, with all three of her children and grandchild spread throughout the country.

She also plans to garden and do things with her husband, Gary.

MARILYN CAMPBELL

Age: 60

Years teaching: 20, all at Georgetown-Ridge Farm.

Favorite author: Debbie Macomber, a series writer.

DOROTHY LICKFETT

Age: 59

Education: Bachelor’s in home economics education from the University of Minnesota in 1970, became certified in elementary education from Eastern Illinois University.

If You Hadn’t Become a Teacher: A musician or a librarian.