Strong finish

FORT RECOVERY — After 34 years, a local educator is retiring.

Robyn Armstrong will be finishing her career as a chemistry and physics teacher at Fort Recovery High School at the end of the school year.

Her role hasn’t gone unnoticed after more than three decades teaching in Fort Recovery. Armstrong’s passion for science is one of her best traits, explained senior Chase Kaiser.

“She just makes everybody feel welcome in class,” said Kaiser. “It’s just a fun environment to be in. Whenever you’re around a person that loves what they’re doing, it makes you enjoy coming to school and enjoy learning.”

Armstrong earned an associate’s degree in dental hygiene from Lima Technical College — it’s now known as Rhodes State College — and worked as a dental hygienist for about eight years. Even then, Armstrong said, she was teaching her patients, specifically about how to care for their teeth.

“I think, deep down inside, I always wanted to be a teacher,” she explained, referencing a story her father tells about her giving lessons to her dolls growing up.

She later returned to school to get her bachelor’s degree in science education from Wright State University. Fort Recovery Local Schools hired Armstrong in 1989, and she’s been with the school district ever since.

“Just have never felt like I belonged any place else except here, I just have always felt like this is where God wanted me to be,” she said.

Her science classes participate in a variety of labs, such as making candy canes, testing Gatorade and learning about vectors through a treasure hunt with “Pirate Pythag,” a character named after the Pythagorean theorem.

“I enjoy watching the kids in AP Chemistry because they really feel like they’re doing science, and they really are,” she said. “There’s a lot of inquiry in the AP Chemistry curriculum, so they don’t have all of the steps. They have to infer, what should I do next?”

Learning is a lifelong process, she explained. Armstrong returned again to college several years back to earn her master’s in curriculum from Bowling Green State University.

Aspects of her class leak into everyday life as well. She recalled a student who had taken physics her senior year and made a career in journalism. Her first assignment involved talking to an inventor.

“You just never know where those things might pop up, where you might need them,” she said.

Armstrong’s influence has extended outside the classroom. She created costumes for school musicals through the years, including a four-person teapot outfit for “Nunsense” and tree costumes complete with detachable apples for “The Wizard of Oz.”

Principal Tony Stahl highlighted Armstrong’s personality, as well as her capability as an educator.

“Working with Robyn is fantastic. She is an excellent teacher, but a better person,” said Stahl. “She’s just a very caring individual, and an absolute professional.”

Armstrong has been selected by 10 students nominated over the years for the Franklin B. Walter scholarship to join them as their representative at the Mercer County awards ceremony. She’s also got a hallway named after her. When the school connected buildings, the science wing was renamed the “Armstrong Tunnel.”

The weight of her retirement won’t hit her until August, she said, when she would normally be preparing for school to start. She explained she’s looking forward to spending more time with family, including her six grandchildren. Her husband, Mark, will be retiring from Grand Lake United Methodist Church in February.

She’s planning to help with tours at Mercer County Courthouse this summer for its 100th anniversary celebration. (Armstrong worked with a tour company taking eighth graders to Washington, D.C., for about 20 years.)

Armstrong’s classes always celebrate science- and math-related holidays, such as Mole Day and Pi Day. Stahl recalled a graduate returning to the school on Pi Day, March 14, to give Armstrong a pie.

“Not a lot of kids do that for all their teachers,” he said. “I would argue that, when you look back at a lot of kids’ high school careers … you look back at your career and there’s always like one or two teachers that you kind of really remember, and I would imagine she’s that person for a lot of our students.”