Author Archives: Terry Lee Marzell

About Terry Lee Marzell

Terry Lee Marzell holds a bachelor's degree in English from Cal State Fullerton and a master's degree in Interdisciplinary Studies from Cal State San Bernardino. She also holds a certificate for Interior Design Level 1 from Mt. San Antonio College. She has been an educator in the Corona Norco Unified School District for more than 30 years.

Teacher and social activist Josephine Gomon of Detroit

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Math teacher Josephine Gomon of Detroit, Michigan, was described as one of the most influential women in the city’s history. Photo credit: Bentley Historical Society.

Many talented classroom educators become involved in social causes that improve living conditions for everyone in their communities. One is Josephine Gomon, a mathematics teacher from Detroit, Michigan, who was described as one of the most influential women in the city’s history.

Josephine was born on June 29, 1892, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. As a young woman, she attended the University of Michigan, working her way through college as a switch board operator. In 1913, she earned her Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, an unusual field for a woman of her day.

Josephine inaugurated her career as an educator when she accepted a position as a teacher of physics and mathematics at Wayne State University, then known as the College of the City of Detroit. Later, after getting married and having five children, Josephine taught in Detroit city public schools. During those years, she also wrote a regular column about education which was published in The Detroit News.

After two of her close friends died in childbirth, Josephine became actively involved in Detroit’s underground birth control clinics. Later she helped to establish the National Planned Parenthood League, and she became the president of the Detroit Chapter. Josephine was passionate about the welfare of the poor and underprivileged in Detroit, and this passion led to her involvement in politics and to her position as Executive Secretary to Mayor Frank Murphy.

The indefatigable teacher was an activist serving the cause of social justice within the community in many ways. She was a founding member of the ACLU in Michigan, and she worked closely with Clarence Darrow on several Detroit-based civil liberties cases. Later she became an advisor to Franklin Roosevelt. In 1933 Josephine was appointed Secretary Director of the Detroit Housing Commission, where she supervised construction of Detroit’s first public housing projects. During World War II she was named by Henry Ford as the Director of Women Personnel at the Willow Run Bomber Plant. Her success in this position led to her becoming an influencer in organized labor in the area.

Josephine passed away on November 13, 1975, at the age of 83. After her passing, the Detroit Free Press described her as “one of the most influential women in the city’s history.” She was inducted into the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame in 1983.

Immigrant Jorge Pulleiro named 2021 Idaho Teacher of the Year

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Jorge Pulleiro, who immigrated to the United States from Argentina, has been named the 2021 Idaho State Teacher of the Year. Photo credit: Idaho State Department of Education.

I enjoy sharing stories about talented educators who have earned recognition for their dedication to their students. One of these is Jorge Pulleiro, a middle school teacher who has been named the 2021 Idaho State Teacher of the Year.

The honored educator, who was born in Argentina, overcame many obstacles to achieve his goal of becoming a teacher. His father died when he was a youngster, and his mother didn’t go to school beyond the third grade. But even as a teenager, Jorge knew the value of education. He began to rehearse his teacher strategies at the age of 16, and by 18 he was tutoring Argentinian high school students in English. Two years later, he immigrated to the United States when he won a scholarship to Brigham Young University in Utah.

After his college graduation, Jorge spent six years in the US Army, from 1999 to 2005. He worked his way up the ranks to become an officer. During these years, he lived in Germany, and later he worked as a rear detachment commander during the war in Iraq. He left the service in 2005 and, through a program called Troops to Teachers, started teaching Spanish at Grant Union High School in John Day, Oregon. He relocated to the Blaine County School District in Idaho in 2012.

Today, Jorge teaches dual immersion (Spanish and Language Arts) to students in grades 6, 7, and 8 at Wood River Middle School in Hailey, Idaho. In addition to his work in the classroom, Jorge serves as the Department Head for the World Language Department, and he has served on various school-improvement teams. His career as an educator spans 27 years.

For his work in the classroom, Jorge has earned many accolades, in addition to his recognition as Idaho State Teacher of the Year, he was named a Spotlight Teacher by the Department of Defense, he has earned the attention of the White House, he garnered a Fulbright teacher exchange to Mexico, and he received the Loretta Wollet Award for Outstanding Teaching at the K-12 level.

Jorge earned his Bachelor’s degree in Spanish Translation and Interpretation from Brigham Young University. He earned a Master’s degree in Teacher Education from Eastern Oregon University, and a second Master’s degree in Educational Leadership from Boise State University in Idaho.

To read more about this Chalkboard Champion, read this article published by the Idaho State Department of Education.

Covid-19 claims the life of Texas teacher Elisa Creacy

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With great sadness we report the passing of Elisa Creacy, a math teacher from Corpus Christi, Texas, who succumbed to Covid -19 on July 30, 2021. Photo credit: Sawyer George Funeral Home, Inc.

With great sadness we report that Covid-19 has claimed the life of yet another beloved educator. Elisa Creacy, a high school math teacher from Texas, succumbed to the disease on July 30, 2021. She was just 35 years old.

Elisa was a teacher at Robstown Early Collegiate High School located in Corpus Christ, Texas. Her career there spanned 14 years. “She had a great impact on her students lives, her family, friends,” remembered her father-in-law Mike Creacy. “She was just a wonderful person. To me, she wasn’t my daughter-in-law. She was my second daughter,” he continued. At the high school where Elisa taught, colleagues and students are showing their respect for the beloved educator by planting a tree and holding an assembly in her honor.

Elisa passed away just three weeks after giving birth to her first child, a son she named Elijah, who was born on July 14. Her passing devastates her family, who was already overcoming many challenges. Her husband is disabled, having suffered severe combat injuries while serving in the US military. Elisa’s father is a chaplain for the Corpus Christi Police Department, and her mother is recovering from an organ transplant.

Elisa was born on February 25, 1986, in Huntington Beach, California. She is a graduate of Charleston Southern University in South Carolina. To read more about her, see this obituary published by Sawyer George Funeral Home, Inc.

Arizona’s Ruth Woolf Jordan: Rural teacher and businesswoman

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Ruth Woolf Jordan

Arizona’s Ruth Woolf Jordan was a rural schoolteacher and a successful businesswoman.

There are many examples of  school teachers who became pioneers in the American Southwest. One of these was Ruth Woolf Jordan, a young teacher who taught in a one-room schoolhouse in Beaver Creek, Arizona.

Ruth Woolf was born in Crittendon County, Kentucky, on November 7, 1902. When she was ten years old, her family settled in Tempe, Arizona. As a young woman, Ruth attended Tempe Normal School, now known as Arizona State University, where she graduated in 1922.

Following her graduation, Ruth accepted a teaching position in a one-room schoolhouse in the Beaver Creek School, about 25 miles south of Sedona. As a rural school teacher, Ruth was responsible for firing up the wood stove on cold days, cutting her students’ hair, checking in on them when they were absent, ridding trails of rattlesnakes, and playing field games such as softball. To get back and forth to school every day, the young teacher rode her horse.

While teaching at Beaver Creek, Ruth was introduced to a young rancher named Walter Jordan. The pair fell in love, and were married in 1930. After their marriage, the couple settled into a one-room cabin on his land in nearby Sedona. Because local policy did not allow married women to teach school, Ruth gave up teaching and became a farmer’s wife. Eventually Ruth and Walter had three children.

During the 1930s and early 1940s, the Jordans expanded their farm to a total of 65 acres. There they planted an orchard of nearly 1,500 apple and peach trees. At the height of their orchard business, during the 1950s and 1960s, the couple was the largest private employers in Sedona. Ruth worked on the farm and marketed the produce in Phoenix, and in later years she returned to teaching school in Sedona and Red Rock when teachers were desperately needed.

By the 1970s, Ruth and Walter were ready for retirement. They sold their last commercial crop in 1973. After Walter’s passing in 1987, Ruth negotiated with the City of Sedona and the Sedona Historical Society (SHS) to reach an agreement to donate a portion of her remaining property to the city, and to sell the remaining four acres and her home to the city. The agreement granted her a life estate and SHS access to operate a museum in the Jordan farm buildings. After Ruth passed away on January 7, 1996, the city developed the land into a public park, and in 1998 the SHS opened the Sedona Heritage Museum. The museum offers exhibits on local history, cowboys, movie-making, orcharding, and local pioneers, including early women settlers, and their contributions to the community of Sedona and Oak Creek Canyon. The historic Jordan buildings were the first in Sedona to be named to the National Register of Historic Places.

You can learn more about the Jordan Historic Park at the website for the Sedona Historical Society at Sedona Museum. Read more about chalkboard pioneer Ruth Woolf Jordan at the Arizona Memory Project.