Carmack retires after 39 years as a teacher

— Joan Carmack, a fifth-grade teacher at Northside Elementary School, celebrated her retirement with a surprise party at the Gallery Cafe on Monday.

Carmack has worked as an elementary school teacher for 39 years and spent the past seven years of her career in Decatur. Her friends, coworkers, family and former students conspired to surprise her with the party held inthe Gallery Cafe’s new banquet room.

During the celebration, Carmack’s daughter, Kelly Pohl, also a teacher, presented her with a scrapbook with letters and pictures from former students and fellow teachers. As Carmack turned the pages with her friends, the book brought laughter over old hairdos andtears over sentimental letters.

Carmack said she has made many memories in Decatur. Some of the highlights include the middle school conferences she attended with her close friends and her first opportunity to pick blueberries with her coworkers.

“I will miss all my good friends and I will think of my students and where they will go from here,” she said.

Over the years, Carmack said she has had some very special kids in the classroom and has enjoyed watching them blossom. Many of her students have come to feel more like family, she said.

Background

Carmack was born in the small town of Fisher in the northeast corner of Arkansas. After growing up in Fisher, she graduated from Arkansas State University in Jonesboro and returned to herhometown to teach. After a few years, she moved on and taught in Blytheville and in Satellite Beach, Fla. before settling in Heber Springs, where she continued teaching in the first through fourth grades for 27 years.

Carmack said she began college as a business major. When she realized she couldn’t master shorthand, she decided to become a teacher. Teaching “just seemed to be a fit” for Carmack, who quickly found she loved working with children.

The love of teaching seemed to spread in Carmack’s family. Although her parents were farmers, Carmack’s late husband was a math teacher and her sister is a special education teacher.Carmack’s daughter and son-inlaw are also teachers.

“There are a lot of rewards in teaching,” she said, “to see the effect you can have on a student.”

Carmack also taught adult education classes and worked with young people at her church and in her daughter’s school band.

“I guess everything I ever did was about kids,” she said.

Pohl recalls that her friends called her mother “Mama Jo.” When Pohl was a teenager, everyone hung out at her house and Carmack and her husband chaperoned at most school events.

“I tried to distance myself from her, of course, but I couldn’t really because all my friends flocked to her. They loved her,” Pohl said with a laugh.

Future Plans

Although she’s not sure what she will do with herself in August, Carmack is looking forward to her retirement. She is especially looking forward to doing away with her three alarm clocks that wake her upat 4 a.m. to prepare for her day.

That’s not to say she won’t keep busy. Carmack plans to continue working at Christopher and Banks as an assistant store manager and keep up her pet-sitting business. She also plans to spend more time visiting her mother and hopes to become a grandmother soon.

“This is kind of a scary time, yet it’s time (to retire). I’m excited to get on with something new ... It’s going to be one big adventure,” she said.

News, Pages 1 on 06/02/2010