By BARBARA GREEN
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When teacher Melissa Zamzow came to Bowie Independent School District in 2018 she saw it as an opportunity to work across the spectrum of music and creativity she loves.
It has been all of those things fulfilling many of her own passions for music and performing, however, with 31 years behind her as a certified teacher she has decided to retire. She hopes to substitute teach, expand her baking business and add more time to what she considers “the most important job of grandmother” to a beautiful one-year-old girl.
The veteran teacher, age 56, was honored with a reception Thursday afternoon and her family is planning a celebration for later in June when they can all get together.
Melissa and her husband, Randy, also a teacher at the high school, came to BISD in 2018 where she was hired to direct high school and junior high choirs, seventh-grade band, direct the high school color guard and assist with the sixth and eighth-grade bands. She is the third director of a three-person team that all works together during marching season.
She says the long hours of doing multiple jobs has become tougher and Zamzow felt it was time slow down some of those demands. The teacher had to give up color guard this year after having surgery on her thumb, which does not allow her to spin the flagpoles. She helped build the program up as they began to compete and win accolades.

Read the full feature in the mid-week Bowie News.