On December 11, Mrs Elizabeth Jack spent her last day as deputy principal of Tokomairiro High School in Milton.
She officially retires on January 31, 2010.
After falling in love with teaching, Miss Elizabeth Flett moved from Dunedin to Milton to take up her first teaching post in 1966, then aged 22.
She fell in love with Tokomairiro High School, fell in love with Milton, and then fell in love with a South Otago farmer, named Bob Jack.
Educated at Otago Girls High School, Mrs Jack knew from her first day of school that she wanted to be a teacher.
"I loved school. I always wanted to be a teacher, and never really deviated from that. I did my bachelor of arts and teacher training, and got my first posting here."
Mrs Jack said she liked the look of Tokomairiro School, and its rural locationThat year, 1966, was when Tokomairiro school began accepting year 7, 8 and 9 - form 1 2 and 3 - pupils.
There were three new, scared year groups, and lots of equally new and scared teachers.
"I think I was more terrified than the kids, but it was also exciting.
"It was a new school with lots of resources, there was a zing to it."
Mrs Jack played representative cricket for Otago, and started a girl's cricket team at the high school, which in those days was a bit radical, she said.
She spent her first five years in Milton boarding.
"The marvellous thing about it is when you come to a small community, you get embraced."
After five years at Tokomairiro High School, Mrs Jack said she was enjoying herself, and loved the children, but was ready to spread her wings.
She took a teaching post at St Johns Grammar in Glasgow.
"I intended to have three years overseas, but at the end of the second year, a job came up as senior mistress."
She came back to Tokomairiro as senior mistress in 1973.
It was during this time she fell in love with Bob Jack, a local farmer who was widowed with three children.
They married, and Mrs Jack resigned from the position in 1977.
"I resigned because the children needed a mother. I loved the farm and didn't regret it at all."
However, Mrs jack retained a connection with the school over the next six years, through the board of trustees and relief teaching.
"I hadn't intended on coming back teaching, because I was happy on the farm, [but] I came back and did a year's full time relieving in 1987, and it just went from there."
Mrs Jack was appointed assistant principal in 1990, and deputy principal in 1994, a position she held for 15 years.
"Part of my role as Deputy Principal was overseeing discipline.
"In the old days you didn't delve as much into why they were going off the rails," she said.
"It's much more satisfying these days, because you do spend a lot of time working with students to try to help them."
There was a very positive atmosphere in the school and a great relationship between the staff and pupils, Mrs Jack said.
"When you are in a small school, you can feel the inferiority complex. [A lot of people look down on Milton].
I keep saying to kids `walk tall, because people from outside don't know the strength of the community'.
"It's easy for kids to get that feeling of negativity, so I keep hammering that message as people before me have, and I'm sure people after me will too, because it's important for kids to feel good about themselves and their community."
Kellee Clark, a pupil at Tokomairiro High School between 1994 and 2001, was awarded dux in both the sixth and seventh forms, before studying law and management at the University of Otago.
She is now working as a Judge's Clerk in Wellington. Mrs Jack set very high standards for both the school and the people in it, Ms Clark said.
"[That was] good for the school because it made us strive to be better.
"I can't speak more highly of anyone I came into contact with in the course of my education," she said.
In retirement Mrs Jack said she was "going to get reunited with the garden", do the family tree, and travel.
"My husband and I want to travel a lot in New Zealand, and spend more time with family."
