Written by Journalism student Ella
New Life Academy has many teachers and one that stands out is Mrs. Meyer, a math teacher here at school. She teaches Algebra 2 and Geometry, is a mother and a wife, and has a goal of running a marathon in each of the 50 states. Meyer says she has run in 23 states so far!
Mrs. Meyer said 2008 was when she started training for her first marathon. She was urged by her sister, who wanted to run it with her. 2009 was the first year she ran a marathon and she said she really enjoyed it. Mrs. Meyer says, “Later that year, I went to a teaching workshop where it talked about life goals. One of mine was to travel to every state, and another was to run a marathon again with a faster time. I figured, why not combine them?”
In addition to marathon running, she also is a mother to children who have attended and still do attend NLA. Jacob Meyer, her youngest child, says that her teaching life does not interfere with their home life, except that he gets extra help with homework. When asked if he ran marathons with her, he said, “No, I could never.”
Meyer came to NLA a year after Jacob was born. She started out by subbing, but her position in the school developed into a full-time teacher. Meyer says, “I started subbing and eventually, the principal called me and offered me a full-time job and I said no. But, God had a way of baby stepping me into the position.”
Math is not a widely loved subject, so Meyer teaching it is a unique choice. She says that while she knew early on she wanted to teach, she didn’t discover she wanted to teach math until high school. She says, “I was able to help my classmates and explain things to them, sometimes better than the teacher.”
Her marathon running doesn’t often interfere with her teaching. A lot of her races are during the summer or school breaks. Occasionally, she said, she’ll take a day off to race. She is 23 states through her goal, but says that, “My body is getting old and doesn’t like running a full marathon anymore, so I might have to adjust my goal. But if I don’t have a race on the calendar, I know I won’t exercise.”
Teaching, running, and raising kids—Mrs. Meyer does it all. Her love of both teaching the toughest subject for students and her devotion to physical fitness shows how dedicated she is to anything she does.