By Lacie Morrison
lmorrison@mineralwellsindex.com

Countless students have turned pages in her classroom, but now English teacher Sylvia Hull is turning a new page in her own life as she retires from 21 years in education.

As she looks forward to spending time with family and getting “my house pulled together,” Hull reflected on the steps that brought her to and kept her in Mineral Wells.

“It's been very interesting,” she remarked. “If you will sit and look back at what has happened, you will see the reasons life has taken the turns it's taken. Sometimes, you will be amazed you didn't see it before, why you were led in that direction.”

“My father was a chaplain in the military. We lived in many states and many countries,” Hull said. For her senior year in high school, her father was stationed at Fort Wolters.

“I sat right behind my husband-to-be in alphabetical order in Wanda Redell's English class,” Hull said with a smile. She was then Sylvia Hulme. Her husband-to-be was Gil Hull, who's mother was her history teacher. It was “one of the interesting circumstances,” she noted.

After graduating from Mineral Wells High School, Sylvia Hull attended college in Monterrey, Calif., and St. Louis, Mo., before a “certain young man” drew her back to Texas.

“I transferred to McMurry to spend time with my future husband,” she recalled. She graduated from the university with a bachelor of science degree.

When asked why she pursued a teaching degree, Hull explained, “Initially, in college, I looked at it as being a good career for a stay-at-home mom because if your husband needed financial assistance, you could help out the family. After you had kids, it would help with empty nest [syndrome].”

Both Hull and her husband graduated from McMurry with teaching degrees, but “in 1971, there was a glut in the teaching field,” she recalled.

Applications to numerous school districts was proving fruitless and the couple was considering joining the Peace Corps when a suggestion from her father-in-law directed them back to Mineral Wells.

“His father suggested we try Mineral Wells for a year,” Hull recalled. Her husband went to work in the family business, Hull Insurance, while she got a call from the Mineral Wells Independent School District three days after school began asking her to teach geography and world history at the high school.

“After I was able to actually experience working with students in the classroom, it was exciting,” she said. “It fulfilled a need in me to share and continue to learn. It became a need to teach.”

After teaching for a few years, Hull left teaching for her family, focusing on their three sons for 17 years.

The family business wasn't the only reason that kept the Hulls in Mineral Wells - it was the people.

“The town has always been supportive and a warm community,” Hull remarked. “We decided it was where we needed our children to be.”

She described those years at home as “fabulous. Those years at home were wonderful.”

She added, “I got to volunteer and do a lot of things. A stay-at-home mom can be a 'nothing' job unless you take it seriously - take your kids' best interests to heart, make it the best time for them. It can be very fulfilling.”

In 1990, Hull rejoined the school district at the junior high level.

“Junior high is more exciting because of the changes you get to witness during the year, students maturing mentally, going through all sorts of physical challenges. … You can't help but be amazed at the differences from your first contact with them to when they leave,” she reflected.

In addition to teaching English - regular level, Gifted and Talented and pre-AP - to countless students, Hull has also been involved in academic committees and other activities such as working with fellow teacher Jackie Bandi with Destination Imagination, a non-profit organization that promotes the development of critical skills such as brainstorming, critical thinking, presentation skills and project management, among other things.

Looking back at the experiences she's had since she first began teaching, Hull said, “I wish I had known how emotionally involved I could be with some of my students and their hopes and their problems and how it, in turn, affects me emotionally.

“I share their joys and accomplishments, sympathize with their disappointments and problems.”

Her favorite memory, she said, is two-fold. “I've thoroughly enjoyed the variety of personalities that I've experienced with all my students and I'm very grateful for the freedom my administration's given me to experiment in my classroom.”

In the next chapter of her life, Hull said she hopes to get in some reading and writing of her own while spending time with her parents in Tennessee.

“They've requested I spend more time with them,” she explained. “I will be going back and forth.”

With an idea of what she wants to do in her retirement, Hull remarked with some humor, “Hopefully, I'll learn how to relax because I don't know if I can.”