3 Teachers + 1 School District = 120 Years Educating Students in Geneva

A grade school teacher, a middle school teacher and a high school teacher.

Three educators, 120 years' experience. Too many fond memories to count.

Jim Burger, Mary Louise Gobel and Roger Parazaider each were honored Monday night by the Geneva Board of Education for 40 or more years teaching Geneva students.

"I consider it an honor," Burger said. "In my day, when I started, 40 years would have been standard operating procedure, and early retirement would have been 38 years. It's an excellent place to work. I've always enjoyed the students, and the parents have been very supportive.

"I've been blessed."

Through the years, these three have seen success stories and spitballs, prodigies and pranksters, and they've been unflappable in the eye of the storm that can sometimes be a grade school or middle school or high school classroom. But on Monday, all three felt a little tug of emotion when recognized for what they do every day and will do again, starting at 7 or 8 a.m. tomorrow.

"I was a little taken aback by it, actually," said Parazaider, who teaches fifth grade at Harrison Street School. "I started at Western Avenue, then went to Sixth Street School, and when they closed that, they spread all the faculty out to various schools, and I went to Harrison. Been there ever since."

Mary Louise Gobel teaches at Geneva Middle School South. She has taught in Geneva for 41 years, starting at Coultrap, where the School Board meetings now are held, then to the newer middle school, where South is today.

"Most of the people on the School Board, at one time or another, I've had their children," she said. "I've even taught some of the board members. And when parents come to open house, as we're going to have later this week, there are always some who come up to me and say, 'I had you in the seventh grade.' "

After 40 years, all three teachers said they still can't wait to get into the classroom and teach. Parazaider even volunteers his time, every year, to co-direct the Harrison Street School fifth-grade musical.

"The fire is still there," Parazaider said, flashing his trademark smile. "The older you get, the harder it is, but we do it."

Burger feels the same way.

"I'm at a place where, if I didn't enjoy what I was doing I wouldn't continue doing it," he said. "But I love it. I'm able to continue doing it because I enjoy doing it."

Editor's note: For the sake of full disclosure, Jim Burger taught me mechanical drawing when I was in high school. Both of my daughters attended Harrison Street School, and although neither was in Roger Parazaider's fifth-grade class, they both speak very highly of him. :)