Overocker plans to craft, travel, and more upon retiring
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 Betty Overocker started playing teacher long before she actually was certified. While in elementary school, she asked if she could run the "ditto machine" for the teachers. And in high school, she was in Future Teachers of America.
“I guess you could say I have always been a teacher,” said the chemistry and biology teacher, who is about to enter retirement.
After earning her degree at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, she held various subbing jobs – including one in Japan for the Department of Defense Schools – before accepting a job at ACHS. There, she was the only female teacher in the Science Department for ten years.
“At one point at ACHS, physics was the only science course I hadn’t taught, and I had taught in every science room in the building,” she said.
Overocker says that the most rewarding part about teaching is seeing students finally “get it,” and when former students tell her they learned a lot in her class, even if it took hard work.
She has many retirement plans, including crafting, spending time with her granddaughter, reorganizing her two homes, and traveling. She's already scheduled her first major trip: a journey to Vaalwater, South Africa for about a month this fall to help at a mission orphanage/school that is being established by some of her friends.
Overocker, who helped to open LCHS five years ago, said she will miss the comradery of the students and staff in District 117.
“These last five years here have been a wonderful ending to a really rewarding career,” she said.
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