Mary Huey
I am an AACPS: Alum, Glen Burnie ’63 | Teacher
My professional path had taken many turns throughout life, taking me between nursing and teaching everywhere from All Saints Sisters of the Poor in Catonsville to John’s Hopkins University to Africa. But after graduating from Glen Burnie High School in 1963, I found myself back there as a teacher twenty years later. Over the course of my career, I have had the opportunity to see so many unique students and teachers make their way through the school—each one leaving a special mark.
GBHS has been a nurturing place for many students and staff. One of our students later became our area director. A new young teacher who came to teach P.E. in the early 90’s returned in 2007 to be our principal. A young English teacher in the 80’s is now a Deputy Superintendent for AACPS. It is hard to count the number of teachers and students who have gone on to leadership roles in our school system and others. Our students have achieved much. All you have to do is look at the biographies of the alumni on the Alumni Wall of Honor.
GBHS is also blessed by the diversity of our population. ESOL students come and share their experiences. If we listen carefully we can find things that we should try. Here at GBHS we know that we are part of a global society. We have at, one time, had students from 29 different countries. Two of those students were even the sons of a student I had during my time teaching in Liberia 20 years before! Their father had come to Glen Burnie to live while he completed his PHD in Medical Entomology at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. His oldest son came to GBHS and made a friend that he still has today. While they were here his second son was born and 14 years later after the Liberian Civil War he returned to Glen Burnie and attended GBHS later graduating from Chesapeake High School. The circle was complete. Years earlier, I left GBHS and went to Liberia, and now their children came here. Their father was instrumental in helping limit the Ebola outbreak in Liberia a couple of years ago. We nurtured his son when he sent them here during the years of war and unrest.
I have been teaching at Glen Burnie High School for 32 years. People ask me, “Haven’t you retired yet?” My response is: “No, I am still having fun.” I am still being blessed by each child that I meet and I grow in my profession and as a person by seeing the excitement, new ideas and energy of the new teachers and student that come each August. How lucky they are to be starting. Times can be difficult, we don’t have as much parent support as in the 50’s and 60’s. There seems to be endless paper work and this and that new requirement and the cell phones! I want to say to the new teachers: Hang in there! You will see what contributions you have made when 40 years later you attend the birthday of one of your student. You will see when they are teaching and guiding the next generation of doctor in the local area. You will see when a young man returns from Marine boot camp to say I was a real brat when I was in your class, I now know that and then when the next big snow storm comes you find him and his Marine buddies clearing your walk. You see when you watch him mature into a fine police officer, father and husband. You will see when a student returns and calls her boss who was in your class 11 years earlier and says thank you. You see when a student returns to bring their new baby for you to see. Just hang in there!
My years of connection to Anne Arundel County Public Schools has carried me on a path that I did not see. Unlike my cousin, I did not want to be a teacher since junior high school, but AACPS kept pulling me back, again and again. It allowed me to grow and become the person that I was meant to be.
