I spent my first year out of college working for a finance company. Although I had a teaching certificate, I had no intention of using it. I planned on being a Gospel singer. I was just biding my time until I got a break. I didn't like the finance job, though, so I reluctantly accepted a teaching position at a small rural school in central Oklahoma. When I say small, I mean there were only 11 in the entire senior class the year I taught and they had to bring two towns together to get that.  It was called Lomega (Loyal and Omega, Oklahoma) Public School.

I loved teaching! It was a surprisingly wonderful experience. I found that what a person receives when they decide to become a teacher is a second family of eventually, potentially hundreds of children and an opportunity to help mold each and every one. The rewards are bountiful and endless. The way a young student looks up to their teacher is both uplifting and humbling. Here I found what I'd been born to do.

The house I'd rented was a humble little abode on a large acreage about a mile from the school.  My only neighbors were a small herd of cows that roamed the adjoining field who often gathered to greet me at the barbed wire that divided the two properties whenever I left and arrived home from work.  I'd walk up to the fence and "Moo" and they would instantly roam toward me and I'd tell them about my day (just kidding).  And sometimes on warm evenings I'd sit outside and watch the sun set then welcome the millions of stars as they filled the velvet black blanket sky.  The best thing about living out away from a city is that the night sky is allowed to reveal its beauty without the pollution of the city lights' and their distracting glare.

As much as I enjoyed those nights and the students and my first experience of being a teacher, it only took a few months in that isolated environment of that tiny community for me to miss a larger city and the opportunites it could offer me, especially socially and professionally. I had also become engaged right before that school year began to a girl I'd met at the church I attended in the city from which I'd moved. So from the outset, I'd only planned on being an out-of-towner for a year. But it was a great year and a wonderful experience all around and I missed the kids as soon as I left.