The long-time English teacher and grammar expert is retiring at the end of this school year.
Mary Mahoney, an English teacher here at Central High School, has announced her retirement at the end of this school year. I’ve had the pleasure of having her as my 11th grade English teacher. She is a bright character who emits positive energy in her classroom. We’ve had our good laughs and memories with one another, so I, along with so many other students and staff, are heartbroken with the news of her parting.
I asked her what the process was like getting a position as an English teacher here at Central. “Oh golly. That was 30 years ago,” she said. “I came here after having taught for 4 years already, and my husband and I moved back here from Tempe, Arizona.” At the time that she applied for the position, there were about 36 other applicants. She mentioned that getting a teaching job here was hard because of the amount of people who were also applying for teaching positions. “Nowadays, because of the teacher shortage, there are not nearly as many applicants. It was kind of nerve racking because I already knew what difficult times people were having getting into the Rapid City school district and Central High School.” Her husband used to also work here as a history teacher, but retired a few years ago.
Mahoney started her first teaching job in 1989, and started teaching here at Central in 1993. “This is my 30th year at Central, 34 years in education.” It wasn’t the first school she’s taught at though. “I started teaching in little tiny Midland, South Dakota, about 100 miles east of here (Rapid City).”
“I really don’t know who I am without Central High School. It’s been a part of my life for well over a half of my life.”
What I wanted to know most was why she and her husband decided to teach here at Central. “Rapid City was always a very good school system and it was known around the state,” Mahoney said. “Our families are in South Dakota. We had moved away to Arizona and then my husband’s dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer and we wanted to be here to spend time with his folks, and my family was here too. We wanted to be in the hills and the Rapid City School District really was kind of the cream of the crop of the time, it was just a really respected school district throughout the state.” She also mentioned that Central, with 2,300 students at the time, was the biggest school in all of South Dakota. Today, there are about 1,700 students here at Central.
Much has changed since then, even with the building. “There were no walls,” she said. Each department was just one big open room, in which staff used moveable chalkboards to block off each ‘classroom.’ “ They were maybe 6 feet high. We put those around the desks,” Mahoney said. While teaching, you could hear the teacher in the classroom next to you. “We’d have a four-foot, five-foot area at the top (of the chalkboard wall) that’s completely open. We’d be talking, trying to talk loud enough for our classes to hear, and be interesting enough for them to focus on what we’re doing instead of what the other teachers in the other area are doing.”
After retirement, Mahoney simply wants to enjoy life more and spend more time with family. “My kids are grown and my oldest lives in Lawton, Oklahoma. I saw him for a brief moment in December, and before that was June (2022). I’ve really only seen him once in the last year, so I’m looking forward to getting to spend some time with him. My husband and I love to camp and we love to travel, so we’ll be doing that.”
But, Mahoney states that she’s not leaving the school entirely. “I think I can’t totally leave teaching, so I am going to come back and substitute. I told my colleagues up here, I really don’t know who I am without Central High School. It’s been a part of my life for well over a half of my life. So I don’t know who I am without it. I’m going to have to come back and do a little subbing. I won’t sub a ton though.”
The Pine Needle 