By Hannah Bute

Over the summer, a teaching position opened up in the science department. It was filled by our new physics and chemistry teacher, Dr. David Michael Drake, PhD.

Drake grew up in the small town of Princeton, IL, a farming community similar to Flora with a population of around seven to eight thousand.

As a National Merit Scholar, he attended Iowa State on a full ride scholarship. He says Iowa was heavily recruiting Merit Scholars, and since it was completely paid for, he accepted. He majored in chemical engineering. “I like math, chemistry and science, but I decided that I would rather teach people who are interested in going into that career field.”

After attending graduate school at the University of Illinois, he received his teaching certificate at Illinois State.

He applied and received interviews for teaching positions, and a couple of offers were made, including an offer from Flora High School. He said, “Flora was the better fit. I wanted to be able to teach chemistry and physics, and coach a scholastic bowl team.” He had offers from larger schools, but he said that Flora was similar to his hometown.

However, living in college towns for a few years made Flora seem rather small. It doesn’t have all of the resources that Drake is used to, and even the school he student taught at was much bigger than our high school.

Coming from a small town, Drake knew that Flora would be much like where he grew up. But he was still “pleasantly surprised” by all of the friendly people. “The small town atmosphere is definitely present.” He wasn’t surprised by the helpfulness of the other teachers and staff, but he is grateful.

“Every day of teaching is a new challenge,” Drake said. “But I wouldn’t do anything else. It’s exciting.”