Jana Crittenden and Lisa Antonowich are retiring after decades of serving students. Students who are grateful for their work will miss them.
Crittenden is one of the school counselors, covering students with last names P-Z. She has worked here for 22 years.
“My favorite thing from my time here is the people, both staff and students,” said Crittenden.
Antonowich is one of the Physical Education teachers. She has worked here for 31 years.
“It is hard to pick one favorite thing about my time here because there have been a lot of good memories, I think it is just making connections, whether it was with an athlete I coached or with a student in class,” said Antonowich.
A big part of someone retiring is deciding what they want to do. They are now free from the confines of the workplace.
“[I’m not sure what my future looks like,] my first grandbaby is due in July, so that’s exciting, also possibly relocating to Northwest Arkansas, gonna go hike and bike and do all the fun things,” said Crittenden.
Since Antonowich’s career began, the world has changed drastically, with brand new technology and concepts.
“When I first started, there were no cell phones, no email; I had to take attendance on a bubble sheet, and I had one desktop computer and it was connected to a dot matrix printer that I used to print fitness reports,” said Antonowich.
Counselors have many duties and schools would be much different without them. They help students with schedules, health, academics, future, etc.
Crittenden said she became a school counselor after working as a teacher and having students who struggled, believing it to be a good fit after being able to help other students.
Although Antonowich will not be teaching next year, she will continue her public service in other ways. Serving the community and helping her family will fill her cup.
“I teach for the driving school, so I will continue to do that. I have got two daughters engaged to be married, so I am gonna be helping plan those weddings,” said Antonowich
Given that counselors are so important to a school’s structure, it may be rough for them.
“Oh yeah, there were hard times, don’t get me wrong, there were some really rough times, but, this was a great place to be,” said Crittenden.
