Thanks for the memories
Despite a late start, Nancy Rhodes made up for lost time with a love for students, hoops
By Kevin Taylor
Alma Schools
The last thing Nancy Rhodes ever expected was to become a school teacher. She wasn’t high on nursing, either.
Motherhood? That came easy, she would soon discover.
But teaching?
Back in 1975, Rhodes explained, there were “about three things expected of women — you can be a teacher, you can be a nurse, or you can get married. I had already done one of them (marriage) but didn’t want to do the other two.”
Eventually, she gave in to teaching. And she never regretted it.
“I honestly battled it (urge to teach), at first,” Rhodes explained. “I had four children before I went to college. I had a lot of expectations placed on me. I was at the top of my class (academically) and everybody thought, ‘Well, if anybody can do it, Nancy can do it.’ It kind of scared me a little bit. I didn’t know anything about college and none of my family went to college.
“I didn’t know if I could do this; I didn’t know if I wanted to do this.”
This week marked Rhodes’ final year in education — a journey that began, by chance, at Hackett High School in the fall of 1993 and concluded following another two decades-plus (2001-2024) with Alma Schools.
But there were some obstacles along the way
Like many baby boomers, the former Nancy Barlett jumped into marriage at a very young age. Before she knew it, she had four babies — Vicky, Carla, Daniel, and Matthew (Vicky was born a month before Nancy’s 20th birthday, and Matthew was born a week after her 27th birthday) before she was 28.
But something would soon trigger and define her future.
“My dad was diagnosed with lung cancer and it just changed everything,” Rhodes said. “You just have to reevaluate your life. ‘What am I going to do? What do I want my life to mean?’ My dad always wanted me to go to college. I thought I would go to Westark (UAFS), get my associate's degree, and I’ll open my catering service. I love to cook, and it makes people happy when I cook. I thought I would do that.”
Nancy took a step back and decided to enroll at Westark in the fall of 1987.
While taking courses at Westark, she met one teacher who changed her life, Bruce Casselman. “I didn’t even like math in high school, but after a few weeks, I figured out that math is like this huge puzzle,” Rhodes said. “I was in the lab one day and he said you need to teach.
“(But) one thing I didn’t want to do was be a teacher and I didn’t want to be a nurse. I didn’t want to be like everyone else.”
After graduating from Westark, Rhodes was awarded some scholarship money to finish her final two years of college at Arkansas Tech. With four kids, who by now were approaching their teen years, it wasn’t easy.
There were no online college courses back in the early 1990s. The Internet wouldn’t truly begin to function as we know it today for another eight or nine years.
In 1993, Rhodes, now 36, started her 31-year education journey.
“But I made it work,” Rhodes said. “My first teaching job was at Hackett because I lived there and that’s where my kids were. Honestly, I didn’t even apply anywhere else.
“(But) I did my internship at Alma, at the Middle School with Ronnie Newton, and he was an inspiration.”
Along with teaching math and science for Hackett students in grades 7-12, Rhodes was given another title — cheerleading sponsor.
Before long, though, Nancy Rhodes was sitting next to legendary Hackett boys basketball coach Tim Branham.
“Back then, you didn’t have a real cheer coach — you had a cheer sponsor,” Rhodes said. “That’s what they told me to do, so that’s what I did. I would sit in the first row behind the basketball team and keep an eye on the cheerleaders. The assistant coach for the boys was the girls' (head) coach, and he (Bryan McKay) was sick that night. He turned around and said, ‘Can you just keep the running score? He took off for the locker room and threw up.
“Fortunately, it kept me from yelling (at officials). Then I realized, ‘Oh, I love this game.’
“And I never stopped.”
After eight years in Hackett, Rhodes began making the arduous drive from south Sebastian County to Alma.
She never left.
“My first week was 9/11,” Rhodes said.
Just like she’d done with Hackett, Rhodes also became a fixture in the Alma girls' and boys' basketball programs as the official scorekeeper.
“I learned a lot from Tim Branham and Stan Flenor … and that’s saying a lot because I played for H.B. Stewart (1974-75) at Greenwood. I had coach Stewart for one year and coach had Miro Spicer for the first three.”
In 2014, Rhodes took her present and final position as the science specialist with the district. Of course, she wasn’t about to relinquish her perch with the scorebook at the scorer's table.
After 31 years of education, she’s ready to retire.
“I told people I was retiring at 30, but I didn’t make peace with it, so I didn’t (retire),” she said. “But this year, all of a sudden I did have some peace with it. I knew I wanted to do some other things.
“I am feeling a lot like the Skin Horse from the Velveteen Rabbit story and yet somehow extremely excited about the adventures I will discover in this next season.”