By Roger McKinney
rmckinney@joplinglobe.com
BAXTER SPRINGS, Kan. — Alma Cook was about to descend into the Grand Canyon with her husband, Paul, when she received a call on her cell phone.
It was a former colleague, Vicki O’Neal, informing Cook that she had been accepted into the Kansas Teachers’ Hall of Fame.
Cook said O’Neal had told her previously that she had submitted her name for the nomination.
“I just kind of put it out of my mind,” Cook said.
“I’m pretty proud of it,” she said after learning the news. “I’m a little surprised.”
Cook will be inducted during a June 6 ceremony at the hall in Dodge City.
Cook retired last year. She had taught first-graders at Lincoln Elementary School from 1972 to 2008. She taught second grade at the school for her first two years there. She began her career in Kansas City, Kan., where she taught third-graders for two years.
Her husband retired 10 years ago as principal of Baxter Springs High School. One of their sons, Phil Cook, is superintendent of the Carl Junction (Mo.) School District. Another son, Kenneth Cook, is a science teacher in Galena. Some of her nieces also are teachers.
“It kind of seems to be a family tradition,” Alma Cook said, while also noting that she was the first in the family to pursue a career in education.
O’Neal, who worked with Cook for 35 years, teaches second grade at Lincoln School.
“She was just a good role model for me and for our school district,” O’Neal said. “She was the kind of teacher every parent wants for their children.”
O’Neal said the school’s motto is: “Lincoln, where the love of learning begins.”
“She took that very seriously,” O’Neal said.
Lincoln Principal Steve Taylor said Cook is deserving of inclusion in the Kansas Teachers’ Hall of Fame.
“Oh, wow,” Taylor said. “She was great.”
Taylor said Cook never stopped learning.
“She went to great lengths to learn about her profession,” he said. “She was always current on the latest research. I would put kids with reading problems in her classroom, and she would step up and meet the challenge.”
Taylor said it is crucial to create an educational foundation in children at a young age.
“If you don’t get first grade nailed down, you just don’t get that back,” Taylor said. “I have to have my strongest people down here at the primary level.”
Cook said she tried many techniques in the classroom.
“I taught long enough that I saw a lot of trends come and go,” she said. “After a while, you see what works and what doesn’t. After about 40 years, I had a pretty good technique.”
She said she could never predict what would happen from one day to the next.
“It was something different every day,” she said.
Since retiring, she and her husband have been traveling. She said they want to visit all 50 states, but she is especially eager to get to Hawaii.
“I’ve been scrapbooking all the trips,” she said.
Even in retirement, she said her mind is still attuned to school bells.
“You hear that school bell, and it kind of gets to you,” she said.
Inductees
Alma Cook is the first Baxter Springs teacher to be included in the Kansas Teachers’ Hall of Fame. Riverton teacher Mary Ann Talbot was inducted in 2000.
