It turns out, mother does know best. Margie Towery’s certainly did.
Towery, 58, of Greenbrier was a public-health educator and gave countless presentations in schools.
“I never intended to teach,” she said. “My mother, before she passed away, many times wanted me to get into public schools. She’d say, ‘I think you’ll love it.’”
Towery got a unique opportunity to teach at South Side Bee Branch High School; she left a teaching job at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway to take the high school job.
“It was the best thing I ever did,” she said. “I’d never taught in public school, and I went up there and taught and fell in love with teaching.”
It seems she’s found her niche. Towery is the Greenbrier School District Teacher of the Year.
Greenbrier Superintendent Scott Spainhour said Towery is “an outstanding educator. Not only does she challenge students in the classroom with fantastic results; she supports them outside the classroom in a variety of ways,” he said.
Towery said she was brought onstage at a student awards assembly and received a standing ovation, “which I thought was cool.”
Greenbrier High School Principal Steve Landers praised Towery’s approach in the classroom.
“Margie is an exceptional teacher,” Landers said. “She has a knack for teaching students in a way that’s both engaging and entertaining at the same time. She demands excellence, but she really works with students when they struggle, and when they’re struggling, she connects with them extremely well and just does a great job. It’s not just about conveying information. She helps lead them to conclusions, so it’s a learning process.”
This is Towery’s 26th year of teaching, including seven at UCA, where she earned her degrees.
Towery grew up in the tiny town of Hickory Ridge in Cross County, and her mother, Madoline Carter, was a nurse’s aide. Towery’s father operated C.L. Carter Construction for many years. Her mother died two decades ago, but her father is retired and sells produce by the side of the road in Wynne, Towery said.
“He’s very active and very proud of his daughter at the moment,” she said.
Towery said she had an unconventional journey to teaching.
“Education was a backup plan,” she said.
She has an undergraduate degree in public health and a master’s degree in public-health education.
“When I graduated from UCA, I worked for the American Lung Association for one year, traveling the state as a regional director for Northwest Arkansas,” she said. “I went into schools and did presentations. Every job I’ve had, I did presentations in schools.”
From 1986-87, she traveled nine counties in central Arkansas as a teen educator through the Community Action Program for Central Arkansas. Towery worked for the Arkansas Department of Health from 1987-88, manning the AIDS hotline, and worked as a sexually transmitted disease investigator, performing exams on young people. Her work in AIDS education continued when she worked as the AIDS education coordinator for the Arkansas Department of Education from 1988 to mid-1990.
“I happened to be in the right place at the right time when AIDS entered the world, and I got jobs through grants to teach about AIDS,” she said.
She was the health editor for Aging Arkansas from 1990-93 through the Division of Aging at the Arkansas Department of Human Services.
“That’s when Jocelyn Elders was director of the Department of Health. I got her to do a couple of interviews for us, which was pretty cool because she didn’t do interviews.
“She became the [U.S.] surgeon general, and I would work with Bill [Clinton] at the Department of Education. Actually, I worked with him more with the Department of Health,” Towery said. “I have pictures in my classroom of me shaking hands with Bill Clinton, and Jocelyn Elders behind him.”
Things were rolling right along for Towery in her career, but she started her family.
“Then I quit [in September 1993] to raise my kids. I was home for three months, and UCA called and asked if I’d start teaching for them.”
She taught health education, women’s health, sex education and first aid.
“I got my undergraduate and graduate degrees at UCA and was a graduate assistant at UCA; then I ended up teaching there for seven years. It kind of came full circle,” she said.
In fall 2000, a friend of Towery’s who taught in the South Side Bee Branch School District was moving to Alaska with her husband and begged Towery to apply for the open position at the school.
Towery did, and jumped in teaching Earth, life and physical sciences, Advanced Placement biology, Pre-AP biology, anatomy and physiology at South Side.
“I’d always loved doing presentations across the state, and this was like doing a presentation every day to me,” she said.
Twelve years ago, she got a job at Greenbrier Junior High School, and her experience has run the gamut of science and biology courses. For the past two years, she has taught Pre-AP biology to 10th-graders.
“I am teaching Pre-AP biology all day long. I absolutely adore biology; I love labs,” she said. “I love working with 10th-graders.”
Towery is also a big proponent of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education for girls.
“I think we don’t have enough girls in the science field,” she said. “Even going back to South Side, I took eighth-grade girls to a program at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock called Girls of Promise.
“They got an opportunity to get a head start on getting a degree or getting an interest in a career in science, technology, engineering and math. We need more girls interested in those types of careers,” she said.
“When I came to Greenbrier … when I got over to the high school, I started looking at ways of promoting science over here,” she said.
In the past, Towery has taken sophomores, juniors and seniors to STEM programs at Henderson State University in Arkadelphia and UCA, and now she takes 10th-grade girls to the programs.
Towery’s influence on the Greenbrier School District has gone beyond science. She started the Rhetoric Society at the high school, which she led for two years until she became full-time sponsor of the Student Council.
“I added community programs to our Student Council; one thing I added was the after-prom party,” she said.
The students have been bowling a few times, and this year, they went to a trampoline park in Conway.
“That’s an opportunity for kids to be in a safe place and have alternatives to other places they could be after the prom,” Towery said. ‘We get businesses in the community to give door prizes. … The community gets to support that.”
She also added a Sadie Hawkins dance to the Student Council’s activities.
Towery said she likes to give students fun opportunities in the classroom, too.
“I think, especially for a science classroom, I think kids should have fun, but it should be structured fun,” she said. “I like hands-on activities; I think education should be hands-on. I think it should be fun, but I think it should be rigorous.”
Students don’t have to tiptoe around in Towery’s classroom.
“I like it to be loud, but I like it to be structured,” she said. “There’s a time to be quiet, a time we can have fun. Let’s have fun; let’s do some labs. Let’s also have respect for other students and teachers.”
Towery’s primary philosophy is this: “Every child matters. I try to have that philosophy that every child matters; every child counts,” she said.
Towery said her favorite quote is by Walt Disney: “‘If you can dream it, do it.’ I must have told my students at South Side that a million times. I say, ‘Look at Mrs. Towery. She came from eastern Arkansas, which some people would consider a poorer area. If you can dream it, you can do it. You’ve got to work hard.’”
Towery said her goal is to keep teaching for a few more years.
“This is my 33rd year of working. My brain and heart want to teach until I’m 90, but my body’s saying, ‘No,’” she said. “I am playing it by ear.”
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.