I was born and raised with my parents and 2 younger brothers on a chicken farm in Northeastern Illinois in the thriving metropolis of Grant Park, Illinois (pop. 1000) about 40 minutes south of Chicago and 3 miles west of the Indiana state line. I went to grade and high school there and graduated in 1995 with a class size of 37.
In 1999 I graduated from Illinois State University with a degree in Geography Education and endorsements in Science, Social Studies, and Language Arts. Upon graduating I spent 1 year at Country Companies and then began my teaching career with 3 years at Chenoa Schools teaching everything from Science to Social Studies to Technology.
When Chenoa closed its doors in 2004, I moved briefly back to my home town where my husband and I married on September 11, 2004. Once he completed his training we found ourselves once again in Bloomington-Normal where in June of 2005, our son Braden was born. After becoming a mom, I spent 2 years as a leave-of-absence substitute teacher (teaching mostly Language Arts and Math) and then 1 year as a Pre-Kindergarten Teaching Assistant before re-joining the full time work force in the fall of 2006 when I became the 8th Grade Science teacher at Olympia Middle School.
In June of 2008, our daughter Hailey was born and shortly thereafter I was blessed with the opportunity to teach Language Arts here at St. Mary’s School. The family of staff and parents truly made me feel welcome and has made this an amazing environment to teach. To that I’d like to say thank you!
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