Linda Lyon Elementary: ‘The Perfect Bookend to a Blessed Career’

Linda Lyon_MAIN — Linda Lyon (third from the left) and her family were treated to a private tour of Linda Lyon Elementary School on Aug. 17, 2017 before classes began on Aug. 28.

(ROCKWALL, TX — August 30, 2017) For Linda Lyon, the namesake of Rockwall ISD’s brand new Linda Lyon Elementary School which opens to students this fall, being a teacher was something she knew she was meant to do ever since she was a little girl.

“I used to line my dolls up and write with a pencil eraser on the door, and the dolls were my students. I knew back then that was something I enjoyed, and I just always did,” Lyon said.

About a week before the start of the new school year, Rockwall ISD treated Lyon and her family to a tour of the brand-new Linda Lyon Elementary School building located at 1400 Trophy Drive in the Heath Golf and Yacht Club development. The Rockwall ISD Board of Trustees voted unanimously to name the 14th elementary school in the district after Lyon during its regular meeting on Dec. 19, 2016.

Lyon spent 31 years of her 37-year teaching career with Rockwall ISD. She graduated from high school in Dallas and then from Texas Tech University in 1973 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Education. She began her teaching career in Irving ISD, where she spent six years teaching 5th grade before she married Terence Lyon in 1979 and relocated to Rockwall ISD, a move she called a “big life-changing event.”

“When my husband proposed he said, ‘Just put your application in at Rockwall because we’re going to live there one day.’ And I said okay. We got married in February and I put my application in, and was very fortunate to get hired on in Rockwall ISD,” Lyon said.

Lyon’s tenure at Rockwall ISD began at Dobbs Elementary, but it wasn’t long before she found herself relocating to an intermediate building where she taught 3rd grade in one of the portables.

“They had just started adding some partitions and things to Dobbs,” Lyon said. “After just a couple of weeks, Mr. Utley called us in the office – there were four of us who were brand new – and said, ‘You know, it’s just too crowded, so we’re going to take the four of you and put you in the portables over at the intermediate building.’ So there were two of us in the back of the building and two of us in the front. We were out in that portable and we had so much fun. It was just the most wonderful year ever.”

Linda Lyon marvels at the new art room of Linda Lyon Elementary.

Lyon then transitioned to Rochell Elementary when it opened the following year in 1980 and taught 3rd graders. She then taught one year in the intermediate school, from 1983-84, before returning to Rochell to teach 5th grade. She continued teaching 5th grade until 1989 when she became the counselor serving both Cullins-Lake Pointe and Rochell Elementary for nine-weeks before returning to Rochell as the full-time counselor until her retirement in 2011.

“It was just home,” Lyon said regarding her years teaching and counseling at Rochell. “I loved everything about it. The kids wanted to learn and they wanted to be loved, and I loved loving on them. And it was just where I taught, so I knew the kids and the families. It was just a wonderful school.”

Whether she was teaching or counseling, Lyon said she thoroughly enjoyed working with kids and always made it a point to make them feel loved.

“Kids don’t care what you know until they know that you care. If you’re going to be an effective teacher, your students need to know you care about them, and I think they need to feel loved. If you can do that, they’ll learn anything from you.”

Lyon said having a school named after her is something she never would have imagined, and is the perfect bookend to a blessed career.

“It’s the most flattering and humbling thing you can imagine,” she said. “It is an awesome culmination to a career that I’ve loved. I thank God every day for my career because its been wonderful to do what I do, and then to have a school named on top of that is beyond words. Never in my life would I have fathomed something like this happening.

“More important than the fact that there’s a school being named after me is the fact that some of my students and my coworkers thought that much of me that they wrote letters and made that happen. That’s the ultimate compliment.”

Chea Ward, who will teach kindergarten at Linda Lyon Elementary this fall, said she’s excited for the opportunity to start off the school year teaching in the new building.

“It’s beautiful. The classrooms are very organized and very bright with the sky lights, and everything is just so modern, fresh and clean. It’s so exciting to be in a brand new building and starting new traditions and adventures,” Ward said.

Former Cain Middle School Principal Megan Gist comes in as the principal of Linda Lyon Elementary and looks forward to building new relationships with the kids and their families, as well as her teachers and staff.

“It means so much to me to be the very first principal to open this amazing school. Rockwall ISD built a beautiful school, and to have the opportunity to be a part of opening this school is such an honor, especially with it being named after such an influential and inspiring educator as Linda Lyon. It’s been awesome to build a relationship with her and make her proud with all the work we’ve done here. Our purpose statement is what starts here empowers greatness, and so we’re looking forward to empowering greatness in every student and every staff member, and in our community.”

Lyon said she’s confident that Gist will bring the kind of friendly and inviting atmosphere she grew to love during her tenure at Rochell to the new school.

“It’s going to be a warm, loving school, open to the community and welcoming. Megan is going to be a fabulous principal for the school.”

Story and photos by Austin Wells, Blue Ribbon News.

See more photos of Linda Lyon’s tour of the new school in the gallery below!