STUDENTS REMEMBER RETIRING SCHOOLTEACHER AT ST. MARY

The cake on the refreshment table said it all -- "Blest with the Best."

The cake was just part of a larger celebration put on Sunday afternoon in the gymnasium of St. Mary Cathedral Grade School in honor of one of their own, fifth-grade teacher Joan Haring.

Haring, who was recently honored by the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce as the elementary education teacher of the year, will retire at the end of the week after 31 years as a teacher. All but four of the years she spent at St. Mary.

"I think I was the first Protestant to step inside this school," she said smiling.

"They call me a Metholic," she said, referring to her Methodist roots.

In her 31 years of teaching, she estimates that she has taught nearly 800 students. That doesn't include the hundreds of students she encountered when she worked as a substitute teacher during the days her children were growing up and spent most of her time at home raising them.

But many of her former students who came to wish her well consider that they were Haring's children as well.

"She always said we were her children in the class. She loved us all," said Heather Lindsey, 11, who is one of Haring's students this year.

Lindsey's mother, Diane Lindsey, was herself one of Haring's students in the 1976-77 school year.

"I still call her Mrs. Haring," Diane Linsey said.

The lasting impression that Haring has had on her students may be because she remains a part of their lives long after they have left her classroom.

Sara Heuer said she was still going to seek Haring's advice and help when Heuer was in college. Haring would proofread the essays that Heuer wrote for her freshman English class, offering her advice and correcting her grammatical mistakes.

When Heuer got married, she asked Haring to read the scripture at her wedding, perhaps remembering back to the days when she was in fifth grade and Haring would read to the class every day following lunch.

Eighth-grader Liesl Schoenberger, 14, the 1996 Missouri junior fiddle champion who played at the reception Sunday afternoon, said Haring continues to be one of her biggest supporters. Haring has even driven as far as Indiana and Kansas just to hear Schoenberger play in competition.

"She shows her dedication and her love for her students," Schoenberger said.

"It's not just teaching and go home," she said.

Although she is retiring, Haring isn't teaching and going home. After attending a training seminar at the Institute for Academic Excellence in Madison, Wis. in March, Haring will become an associate presenter for Reading Renaissance seminars where she will teach teachers. Even in retirement, her job isn't finished.

"I hope I've touched a lot of lives. I know a lot of lives have touched me," she said.

"I've received much more than I have ever given."