EDUCATION

My parents emigrated from Greece to Salt Lake City when I was a child. Education in Greece, at that time, was a luxury that very few families in rural areas could afford. My mother had to quit school after 3rd grade and my father after 5th grade. To survive, families depended on everyone working, even children. I was the first woman in mother’s family to graduate from high school. My parents instilled in me that education was a gift available to me in America. I was expected to use education not only to better myself but also to benefit others.

I received a BS from the University of Utah in Sociology and History.  Shortly after graduating, I moved to California where I began my teaching career working with children impacted with dual sensory losses (vision and hearing) due to the Rubella Epidemic. I fell in love with teaching and expanded my teaching credentials to include Hearing Impairment, Learning Disabilities, Gifted and Talented, English as a Second Language, and Reading Specialist. I went back to the University of Utah and completed a Masters Degree in Education in 2006. I taught 5 years in Heber and then in Park City for 20 years. I took an early retirement option from the Park City District and fulfilled my dream of traveling for more than a year around the world. When I returned to Utah, I privately tutored for 7 years.

COMMUNITY

I fell in love with Midway as a child when my aunt would bring my cousins, my brother and I to Midway every summer for a week. We would stay at the Homestead and go horseback riding and swimming. I knew this was the place I wanted to raise my daughter and moved here when she was only 5 months old. That was 45 years ago. The most frequent question asked when I moved here was, “Why would you want to live so far away in the middle of nowhere?” Heber valley was far away in many ways.  Traveling in the winter, on the two-lane Highway 40 in was both slow and treacherous, without front wheel or all wheel drive. I often chose to wait for the Greyhound bus to SLC that stopped once a day at the Grill Cafe. I boarded the bus with my baby daughter in one arm and a suitcase in the other. My two younger daughters also grew up here. I have never lost my love of living, for more than 40 years, in this beautiful place and being part of our ever- changing community.