Schools

She left job, but couldn't leave schools

Health concerns forced Sally Lyman to retire from teaching. But she'll keep volunteering.

By PAULETTE LASH RITCHIE, Times Correspondent
Published August 23, 2007

BROOKSVILLE - At age 61, Sally Lyman was ready to teach Moton Elementary School students at least one more year before she retired. At the end of the school year she had her class list ready.

About two weeks after school ended for the summer, everything changed.

Lyman was helping her son decorate a room at his home for her soon-to-be-arriving grandchild. She felt funny, like her foot was asleep. Two days later, she had four more of the strange episodes, a total of five ministrokes.

Lyman's daughter, Natalie Darby, took her to the hospital where she stayed for four days.

She insists she is fine now, but her doctor told her to stop working. Completely shutting down is not an option for the energetic grandmother of three, so she decided to slow down and "do grandparenting things."

The new retiree also has no intention of abandoning the school system, even if she has handed her fifth-grade classroom to a successor.

"I plan to do as much volunteering and stay as active as possible at Chocachatti (where she taught for five years) and Moton. So they will be seeing me around," she said.

She still won't have much time for lounging, even after the volunteering and the grandchildren. She runs a 3-acre farm and raises cattle.

Lyman has been a teacher since 1970; she began as a high school biology teacher. She almost became a veterinarian and was in veterinary school at Purdue University, but she said no matter what she was studying, she found herself teaching someone. She realized teaching was her true calling, so she changed majors.

Lyman began working in Florida in 1974 as a graduate assistant at the University of South Florida. She started work toward a master's degree in art and switched to special education. She taught exceptional education students for several years before adding elementary certification to her resume and trying fifth grade.

"It's really good to switch around a little bit," she said.

She also has taught intermediate math and science lab. She ended her career back in a fifth-grade classroom.

Now she will be more available to her family, which includes her daughter, Natalie Darby, who teaches first grade at Chocachatti Elementary School, and son-in-law Patrick Darby, who is with Withlacoochee Electric. She has a son, Buck Lyman, who, with his wife, Meghan Lyman, trains small mammals and dolphins in the Orlando area. And there are those grandchildren.

Lyman's friends and co-workers plan to celebrate her unexpected retirement, perhaps in October, she said. In the meantime she is adjusting to not returning to school.

"I'm going to miss the kids, the activity (and) the engagement with the kids," she said. "I'm looking forward to being a full-time grandma, doing some traveling, volunteering and getting a full night's sleep."

[Last modified August 22, 2007, 20:56:35]