A long dream come true

Office professional becomes teacher

MOSES LAKE - Sally Nicholas' classroom looks like any other elementary school classroom, except for a few subtle differences.

There is a saddle on a log in front of the room at Longview Elementary School. The coatrack is made of real horseshoes. The table and projector is covered in paisley cloth. A mock "window" on the wall features Nicholas and her husband riding horses.

In addition to adorning her classroom with a western theme, Nicholas has a story different from some other teachers. At 47 years old, she has been teaching just two years.

"I'm 47 years old, 4-foot, 10 inches (tall), and 100 pounds," said the second-grade teacher.

Nicholas emphasized there are others like her who became teachers later in life.

"I know there's a lot of other teachers out there, and kudos to them, because to me it shows that they're an inspiration to kids to don't ever give up on their dream," she said.

Nicholas may be new to teaching, but the path to become one was a long road of detours.

After graduating from high school in 1979, Nicholas enrolled at Western Washington University to become a teacher. She worked full time, too.

When Nicholas saw how much money could be made in court reporting, she instead earned an Associate of Arts degree in court reporting from Edmonds Community College.

"When you're new you just kind of take every deposition job, and you could basically say I burned myself out," Nicholas said. "Because you're up at night, dictating, but at the same time I was doing that, I was working part-time in human resources at Snohomish County PUD."

Nicholas also found it difficult to sit still in front of a machine for eight hours as a court reporter. At the same time, she found she enjoyed human resources.

It is where she spent the next 27 years - at several places including Motorola, in Redmond, Wash., L-3 Communications, in Redmond, Wash., Valley General Hospital in Monroe, Wash., and Moses Lake Community Health Center.

Nicholas met her husband Nick four years ago through her apartment manager in Monroe.

"The apartment manager said, 'Oh my gosh, out of 300 units, you're single. You have no kids. You don't smoke and you've got a great credit rating. You should meet my dad,'" Nicholas recalled with amusement.

Nick, who lived in Moses Lake, visited Monroe, and their future together was sealed. Nick sent Nicholas job announcements from the newspaper, and she found a position as an executive assistant to the CEO at Moses Lake Community Health Center.

Since 2004, they have been married and shared a home together in Moses Lake.

It was Nick who re-ignited Nicholas' dream of becoming a teacher. Nicholas was a Sunday-school teacher at the time.

"(Nick) said, 'Have you ever thought about being a teacher?,'" Nicholas said. "And of course my mouth fell open, because at 18 that's what I went to Western to be."

Nick urged her to quit work and return to school. Since Nicholas already earned a bachelor's degree in business administration from City University, she only spent a year at Heritage University to earn her residency teaching certificate.

Nicholas approached then-Principal Loren Fitting at North Elementary School to find out if she could get classroom experience. Fitting, who died in September 2007, was one of Nicholas' instructors at Heritage University.

At first, Nicholas worked as a volunteer. When a para-professional position became available, Nicholas took it. She spent eight more months as a substitute for Ephrata School District and Moses Lake School District.

This is her second year as a full-time teacher. At the same time she is working full time, Nicholas is working toward a master's degree in education from Heritage University and toward her professional certification.

"I think I'm a lifelong learner," Nicholas said. "I love to learn and I love to see kids' faces light up when they learn something new. Even when I first moved over here, I went out to Big Bend (Community College) and took a Spanish class. I took a biology class just because I like to go to school."

When she is not teaching, Nicholas takes care of animals at home. She and her husband have five horses, two dogs, several cats and chickens. She was an outdoors type before she met Nick, in love with fishing, but became interested in horses after she met him.

Nicholas spoke well of the Moses Lake School District and Longview Elementary School staff, Principal Robbie Mason and District Superintendent Steve Chestnut.

Inspirations include Moses Lake City Councilman and family friend Dick Deane, and Nicholas' mother.

She said she wants to bring out her students' potential.

"I just make them try to do their best," she said.

The biggest challenge Nicholas faces as a teacher is reaching every child.

"I want to make a difference to every kid in this room," she said.

Asked what they think of Nicholas, students all said their teacher is nice, including 8-year-old Anika McVay.

A few other students had more to say.

"When you do stuff for her, she gives out treats," said 7-year-old Tanner Marr.

One student had a lot more to say.

"Mrs. Nicholas is a really nice teacher and I wonder if she'll pick me as her helper, and I think I'm going to be a lunch helper," said 7-year-old Ashley Dotson. "And I always wanted to give her a really nice present for her birthday. She's so nice, kind of clever, and I like her the way she is, no matter how if she wears pants, skirts, dresses, I just like her the way she is, and she's the biggest, biggest friend I've ever had."

"She's nice," said Johnai Garcia, 8. "She lets me pass out the papers."

Garcia also described Nicholas as funny.

"Tomorrow I'm going to give her an apple," he said. "I like her because she makes things fun, and I'm really excited about my new teacher."