Emporia High School science teacher Marilyn McComber was formally invested as a Kansas Master Teacher on Wednesday night, along with six other top teachers from across Kansas.
“I would like to thank anyone who has ever helped any teacher,” McComber told the audience at an awards dinner in Webb Lecture Hall on the Emporia State University campus. “We need to continue to do the best we can for every child in our classroom.”
This is the 54th year that the state master teachers have been honored. For the 24th time in those years, organizers also gave a special master teacher award, this time to Tes Mehring, dean of The Teachers College. Last year, a special award was given to outgoing president Kay Schallenkamp.
“Teaching is the most important profession in the world,” said Mehring after being obviously caught by surprise with the award. “It’s been a pleasure to do it for 33 years. I hope I have another 33 left in me.”
“All of a sudden, I realized that sounds a bit like my epitaph,” she added with a chuckle, getting an answering laugh from the audience.
The other teachers recognized this year were Rob Davis of Olathe, Robin Dixon of Topeka, Shelly Faerber of Manhattan, Diane Ladenburger of Pratt, Angela Miller of Junction City and Elouise Miller of Hays. The seven spent the day in Emporia attending events that included a seminar, a tour of the new National Teachers Hall of Fame and lunch with ESU President Michael Lane and his wife, Peggy.
Elouise Miller may have been the dean of the new class of master teachers, with 58 years in the profession and no intention of retiring yet. She began teaching in a country school when she was 17.
“You built your own fire, you pumped your own water,” said Elouise Miller, now a kindergarten teacher at Lincoln Elementary School. “We had refrigeration in the winter when you put things outside in the cold. One little girl put her milk out in the snow and we found it in the spring.”
McComber hasn’t been going quite that long, though she has logged more than 30 years in education. After graduating from Emporia State University in 1970, she went to work in Salina, which at the time had Schilling Air Force Base active nearby. Many of her students had a parent who was either a prisoner of war or missing in action.
“I learned a tremendous amount and I learned what war does to families and to people,” McComber said.
That was followed with time spent teaching in the Peace Corps in Central America, and then in Houston before returning to Kansas. In Houston, she said, she started to realize what “don’t mess with Texas” really means.
“One day I asked my class ‘Wouldn’t you like to get out and see the world?’” McComber said. “I remember Danny said ‘Ma’am, my daddy says if it isn’t in Texas, it’s not worth seeing.’”
She has taught the last 14 years at Emporia High School.
“What an experience,” McComber said. “What a ride.”