As the towers were tumbling, Amber Nichols’ phone was ringing.
It was her mother on the line.
“Honey, do you know what’s going on?”
“No — what’s going on?”
There was a lot of geography between Nichols and her hometown of West Union in Doddridge County that day.
She was readying for her first day of teaching — her first-ever day of teaching, in fact — in front of a classroom of kindergarteners at Ronald Reagan Elementary, a K-6 school in Yuma, Ariz.
Yuma, which nudges the California and Mexico borders at the extreme western tip of the Grand Canyon State, was where life had taken her.
Her husband Aaron was an active-duty soldier, stationed at the Marine Corps Air Station there.
Nichols, who earned a degree in broadcasting from Shepherd University, had gotten a job at small TV station in the area, but, as it turns out, that wasn’t what she wanted to do after all.
“Want I really wanted to do was children’s programming at PBS,” she said.
Arizona was thirsty for educators, provided an applicant had a four-year degree.
So, she followed that teacher’s heartbeat she was pretty sure she had. She turned in her notice at the station and went about remaking a career and a calling.
Those kindergarteners were waiting to meet their new teacher. It was Sept. 11, 2001.
Aaron said, “I love you, but I don’t know how long it might be before I see you again. I don’t know if I’m gonna have to deploy.”
With all that, Nichols, who now teachers kindergarten at Eastwood Elementary, went into that classroom in Yuma — and went to work.
“And that was my first day,” the finalist for West Virginia State Teacher of the Year said.
Nichols has had a lot of first days since.
She’s spent 21 years in front of the classroom, teaching special needs classes and kindergarten classes and making the grade with every mom and dad and caregiver she meets, said DeAnn Hartshorn, her principal at Eastwood.
Back in the Mountain State, Nichols earned a graduate degree in education from WVU and taught in Jefferson County’s school district before she and her family settled in the University City.
Eastwood Elementary has been her professional home for going on 10 years.
Her principal said she was heartened by Nichols’ nomination.
The Eastwood teacher is one of 10 across the state from the elementary, middle and high school levels, vying for the honor, which will bestowed in September in Charleston.
Heartened, yes, Hartshorn said, chuckling. But not surprised.
That’s because Nichols has “super powers,” the principal said, which emanate from her eyes and her heart.
“Amber will look at the kids in her class, and she’ll instinctively ‘know’ them,” she said.
“She sees their strengths and she sees what she has to do to help them excel. And her rapport with our parents is amazing. She makes us all better.”
“I’m really blessed to be able to do this job,” Nichols said.
She and Aaron are the parents of three children, and one them wants to be a teacher.
On that Tuesday back in Yuma when terror came calling on America, Nichols knew for sure she did, too.
“A lot of the kids in our school had dads and moms in the military,” she said, remembering that day.
Seven of the teachers on staff, including a West Virginia newbie, were married to people stationed at the base who could be going off to the war that minute — for all anyone knew in the swirl of shock and uncertainty.
“The principal called us in, and said, ‘If you need to leave to get your houses in order, do it. We’ll help you, whatever you need.’”
Rank, however, carries over in a military town.
One of the teachers was married to a lieutenant colonel at the base, and Nichols won’t forget her response.
“She said, ‘You know what? We’ve got each other. We need to stay. We need to be with our kids, so we can help them get through this.’ And that’s been my mantra ever since.”
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