>> It was a small system for one thing,
rather than being a number of a position,
you were an individual.
And the relationship between the community,
between the school administration, between the staff.
This was one of the things that kept me with the system.
The years that I was with the system.
I just had a good feeling.
And of course, even today,
as I mentioned, I go out in the community and see
so many people that I worked with.
My doctor happens to be one of
my former elementary students.
My dentist is one of my former elementary students,
and so many other people that I do business within
town were people who maybe in some small way,
I had an influence on their lives.
I noticed a lot of educators
and this is fine if this is the way they want,
it will go and stay a while and then they go to
another system and stay a while
and another system to stay a while.
But I just was happy that
my whole career was spent in one system,
and I still feel that I'm
a part of the Marietta School system.
I had the privilege over the past several years of
serving on the board of the Marietta Schools Foundation.
And so I can be involved in this way.
So this is what's kept me
here as involvement and friendship.
>> I'll share similar sentiments.
I have some strong friendships here in the city.
It's a mighty fine school system,
and they do things correctly in the right way,
and just the many pluses,
along with the strong community support.
If there's a genuine need
that the city school system has,
oftentimes someone in the community
will step up and help provide,
be it a service or a product that we need with
educating all the many fine students
here in the school system.
Along with the encouragement
that I received throughout the years,
it's a very encouraging nurturing system,
not only for its students that we educate,
but also for the staff members.
>> We had a former superintendent
who just always tell us that we
want you to have what you need to
take care of the needs of Marietta City School students.
And this was at a time when going was a little bit rough.
He said, now, we're going to get all your needs that you
have at the school to have
a fine program of education for the boys and girls.
Now, some of your wants we might not be able to get.
But you'll have all your needs.
And I found that to be true. [MUSIC]