By BARBARA GREEN
[email protected]
As a senior in high school, Rachel Knox felt “called” to be a teacher.
Thirty-four years later she looks back on hundreds of children whom she has loved and taught in her classrooms.
Knox retires as a fourth grade science and social studies teacher at Bowie Intermediate. Friends and co-workers helped her celebrate with a reception during the last week of school, the culmination of a career that includes 27 years in Bowie Independent School District. She felt the time was right to retire so she can enjoy more time with her mother, do some traveling and tackle some of those other things a work day does not allow.
Background
Born in Duncan, OK, the Knox family left the state a short 18 months later later landing in Denver after moving from Kansas during her senior year. After graduation she attended the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley.
Knox recalls this school began as Colorado Normal School, where in earlier years when women were not allowed to attend college, they could go to a normal school to prepare them to teach the “norms” to children. The school evolved into Colorado State Teacher’s College and then the University of Northern Colorado, where Knox says they had good nursing and business programs.
“For a long time I wanted to be a nurse, but I realized I didn’t care for blood,” laughs Knox. “I also considered physical therapy, but you have to make people hurt. During my high school senior year I felt called to be a teacher. I always liked children and felt like teaching was where God was leading me.”

Read the full feature in your weekend Bowie News.