The clock is winding down on Judy Hail’s 36-year career in education. The Lampasas High School ag teacher will retire from the classroom at the end of the school year.
Hail, a 1986 LHS graduate, started her career in the district at Lampasas Middle School as an English teacher in 1992 before transitioning to her current role seven years ago. For Hail, retirement is yet to fully settle in as she still juggles her role as an FFA e.
“It doesn’t feel real yet. With FFA, we are still traveling and competing,” she said. “I have travel and still have duties this summer, so it is not quite real yet.”
Although Hail may be retiring, it doesn’t mean she’s putting the brakes on pushing excellence in the classroom. In fact, she may be putting in more effort than ever before. Not once has her approach changed, despite this year being the last hurrah.
“I didn’t want to be the teacher who quit and did nothing because she knew she was retiring,” Hail said. “I hope I haven’t slacked off. I’m trying to finish strong and help the new teachers be ready for next year.”
TEACHING JOURNEY
Since she was a junior at LHS, Hail was set on a teaching career. In Shirley Crawford’s English class, she remembers classic literature coming to life. In Ronnie Vineyard and Jack Winterroud’s ag classes, she recalls learning of a world she never knew existed.
“I grew up on a farm and a ranch, and it was the basis of our life because that is what my parents did,” Hail said. “I knew cows, pigs, farming and gardening, and that was about it. They opened a lot of other doors to agriculture that I didn’t know. We traveled, and I went to the Panhandle and [Rio Grande] Valley of Texas and saw farming I had never seen before that was very different than what we have in Lampasas.
“We don’t grow cotton here, and that was very intriguing to me,” she said. “To go to the Panhandle and see the huge silos, we have small ones compared to what we have up there. And to travel by the feedlots in Lubbock – those are things that made a huge impact on me.”
Hail attended Tarleton State University to pursue her teaching career, majoring in ag communication while also studying English. After finishing her master’s degree and spending a year at Cal Farley’s Boys Ranch in Amarillo as a transition coordinator for junior and senior boys, she saddled back to Lampasas with her first baby on the way.
With fewer ag teaching opportunities than today, Hail was happy to serve as an English teacher at Lampasas Middle School and spend time with family. She stayed active in agriculture by serving as a 4-H adult leader, taking a place on the stock show board and judging FFA events.
“I knew I wanted to be a mom,” Hail said. “I didn’t want to travel as much we do currently, because I am gone about 40 days a year, probably. Those are not all school days. A lot of that is summer and weekends. I wanted to be a mom and raise my kids and be there for them.”
When Hail shifted into her role as an ag teacher in 2019, the change from middle school to high school students was not as noticeable as some might expect.
“High school kids are a little more mature, and that is really nice,” Hail said. “It is also very different going from the English classroom where everyone has to take the class to an elective where they choose to be there. That has been very nice, because the kids want to be in our ag classes.”
While Hail’s goal in the English classroom was to improve student writing and reading skills, the ag classroom focuses on a different kind of literacy. Raising up the next generation of ag students has been a mission she takes to heart.
“I teach my kids that I want them to be agriculturally literate,” she said. “I want students to know this is where my food comes from, this is where my clothes come from. I teach them that agriculture is the basis of life – it touches us every day.”
Helping students learn in the classroom has not been Hail’s only goal, however. Since she started teaching, she sought to ensure students become the best they can be in all aspects of life.
“Everybody wants to be the best, but we all can’t be the best, but we can all be the best version of ourselves,” Hail said. “That is what I try to help the kids learn, is that they can be the best version of themselves because we are all different.”
CHALLENGES, CHANGES AND MOMENTS
In her three-plus decades in the classroom, Hail’s biggest challenge has been adapting to technology, she said. When she started her career, teachers didn’t have computers. Now, each student has his own Google Chromebook.
Hail believes the technology has paid dividends. This year, she had a student perform a speech on the ingredients of a candy bar and how it related to agriculture. At the click of a button, the student found a video that showed how cocoa trees in Ghana are used for the cocoa beans that make chocolate.
At the same time, the old-school teacher admits some students are honing in too much on technology.
“I think our kids have become too reliant on technology,” Hail said. “I don’t think we do enough pencil-paper anymore, but that is probably old school. I think some kids have become too reliant on technology because they can look everything up and expect things to be instantaneous, like it is on the World Wide Web.”
Along with numerous changes in technology, Hail also has experienced her fair share of memorable moments as a teacher. The pinnacle came three years ago, she said, when the high school’s FFA Agriculture Communications team garnered first place at state, earning a plane flight to Indianapolis for the FFA National Convention.
But Hail said her defining moment as a teacher came in 2010 when she helped a student read a book for the first time during summer school.
“Some people wouldn’t think that is a big deal, but it was a big deal because I felt like I’ve taught her to love reading,” Hail said. “She wanted to take the book home, and she read it all weekend and finished the whole book and then asked for another one.”
As the end of Hail’s tenure approaches, she is preparing ag teachers Rachel Richter and Sara Bumpas to take the mantle. But the First Street Church of Christ member doesn’t plan to slow down on teaching anytime soon.
“I’m sure I will continue,” she said. “I teach Bible class at church, and I will still continue to foster that growth in kids because that is what it is all about.”
