Guiding light to more than 3,000 youths

By Kristen Waggener, kwaggener@miconews.com

Diane Shultz is retiring after 30 years of teaching in Louisburg USD 416. Shultz has spent most of her career teaching social studies at Louisburg Middle School. (Kristen Waggener / kwaggener@miconews.com)

Thirty years ago, Diane Shultz came to Louisburg expecting a one-room schoolhouse, complete with prairie setting.

But former Louisburg superintendent Jim Knox and former Louisburg Elementary Middle School principal Jack Turner convinced her Louisburg was a place to stay.

“My husband came back to Kansas City, and I needed a teaching job,” Shultz said. “I came out here, and here I am 30 years later.”

But this year is Shultz’s last. After three decades in Louisburg, the sixth-grade social studies teacher decided to retire.

Shultz came to Louisburg six years after she started teaching, first in Grandview, Mo., then in St. Louis. She graduated from the University of Missouri with a bachelor’s degree in education and from Central Missouri State University with her master’s degree in elementary education.

She came to Louisburg in 1978, first as an elementary sixth-grade teacher, and once the grade was transformed into individualized subjects, Shultz chose social studies. She’s been in that role since.

“I just loved the subject,” she said. “It’s been a fun subject to teach because there’s so many things you can do with it.”

Throughout 30 years of teaching, Shultz said she’s had her fair share of interesting stories, but she can’t just pick one as her favorite.

“I could just write a book on the experiences. Some funny stories, some sad stories. It would just be chapters,” she said.

More recently, though, her favorite part of being in Louisburg for so many years is watching the kids grow up.

Sometimes they’ll stop her in the grocery store just to say hi, she said.

“I’ll tell them ‘I know who I am, but please remind me who you are,’” she said. “Last time I saw them, they were 11.”

But after nearly 3,000 students, that’s to be expected.

“I’m on my second generation,” Shultz said. “A lot of people I work with I had as students. That’s the great thing about a small town is people stay here.”

It’s obvious Shultz’s students know her well and enjoy her as a teacher.

“Who’s going to wear the clown suit?” one of them asks during a conversation about her retiring.

“Are you still going to wear a different outfit every day?” another questions, something Shultz is known for at Louisburg Middle School.

“I will really, really miss teaching,” Shultz said. “I’m glad I chose it as a profession. There’s nothing else I would’ve rather done.”

Deciding to retire was a hard decision, she said. She’s been toying with the idea for the last four years, but she’s never been able to do it.

“The day before I turned in my resignation was the hardest day of my life,” she said.

But Shultz is ready for a change.

“I just want to be on no schedule and be able to do whatever.”

Shultz’s retirement party will be at 3:15 p.m. today at the middle school.

She won’t miss the more-than-20-mile drive to work every day, or hoping for snow days when the weather is bad, she said, but she will miss the people.

“I’m going to miss this town so much. These people opened their arms to me. I loved every single person I met here.”