Summit Academy teachers passes away from cancer

Colleagues remember Summit Academy kindergarten teacher For 25 years, Summit Academy kindergarten teacher Betty Leary created new songs to teach students concepts, many which became school traditions. This year, she had new ideas to teach. However, after being in remission, Leary’s cancer returned, and on Aug. 22, she told Principal Bob Zentner she wouldn’t return teaching.

Leary lost her battle Oct. 26 at age 64.

“She had taken a year off and she was so ready to be back teaching last year; it made her so happy,” kindergarten teacher and friend Angie Jenson said. “When one test showed the cancer had came back, she was grateful she could finish the year and make it special for those kids. She wasn’t ready to leave. She still wanted to teach, especially this year, when she had three grandchildren in kindergarten.”

Faculty and students plan to memorialize Leary’s five years at Summit with a special bush and granite stone. She taught at Challenger for about 20 years.

 “We could count on Betty for coming up with fun ways to bring the magic of learning in the classroom,” Jenson said. “She would weave music and art to what they needed to learn. Her students--she’d call them ‘her friends’--would chant a song about how to spell Halloween and then add a spooky ghost or witch’s cackle to it. She put music to a recycling poem she wrote so students would learn and remember it. We’re using her teachings this year, continuing with her traditions, so her legacy goes on.”

One traditional assignment was using a balloon for a nose for a paper plate witch. So students would learn about air pressure as the balloon deflates and at the same time, create a fun art project.

“The kids loved her. They’d give her notes and pictures,” Jenson said.

Leary’s own watercolor painting of U.S. flags at Sandy cemetery is hung in the school office, but Zentner plans to move it to a memorial wall when Leary’s name is added.

“She was an accomplished artist, a dancer and clogger, and a very talented musician,” he said. “She played banjo, acoustic and electric guitar, and piano. She taught music in the classroom and also through programs that included a lot of singing and dancing.”

Leary’s daughter, Summit sixth-grade teaching assistant Megan Heaton, said her mother wanted to inspire kindergarteners.

“The students are eager to be at school to learn, and she loved helping kids individually, motivating, encouraging and challenging them to embrace learning,” Heaton said. “She taught us the same way at home. She’d be so patient and creative helping us memorize with rhymes and actions. Now I take that same approach and try to do that with my own kids.”

Two years ago, Leary was diagnosed with breast cancer. She took one year off to undergo treatments, and during that time colleagues walked in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure in her honor. Last year, the school rallied behind her by putting the breast cancer logo on their annual Jogapoolza fun run T-shirts.

She returned teaching last fall, but by spring, Leary learned the cancer had spread to her bones, Jenson said. In August, she came to Summit Academy for her last time to visit with colleagues and students. In early October, the kindergarten teachers visited her in her home.

“We laughed, talked and she was thinking so clearly. She wanted to know what we were doing, both in the classroom and in our own lives,” Jenson said. “I’m so grateful for that day.”

Heaton said originally she entered the medical field, but now realizes her mother inspired her to teach.

“I look through her files and realize she really was so creative in incorporating music and art in her teaching,” she said. “It was so hard because she wanted to teach these three grandchildren, and when she realized she wouldn’t, she bought workbooks and dry erase boards to teach them after school. She didn’t even get the chance. We lost so much — my mother, my kids’ grandmother, their teacher, a friend and one of our heroes.”