By Emily Williams

“Keep your eyes on your own paper and your mouth closed or your mouth on your paper and your eyes closed, but it’s really hard to take a test that way.” If you ever had Mr. Ridge as a teacher, you have probably heard this phrase at some point.

Unfortunately, after 33 years of teaching,  one of our favorite history teachers is retiring at the end of the 21-22 school year. 

When Mr. Ridge started college, he would have never guessed that he would end it with a degree in teaching. Being in school, he just loved the way his professors taught, how cool they were, and how much joy they brought not only into his life, but the rest of the students’ lives, so he switched his major to teaching. 

Now, if you ask a teacher what their favorite memory from teaching was, you would normally think it would be about just one unique student, but not Mr. Ridge. His favorite memory was first, falling in love with teaching and second, teaching all the wonderful and amazing students that he has had throughout all the years. He just loved making amazing memories with the students and seeing them smile and laugh about it. 

Even though Ridge is ending his full-time teaching career, his work life is not over. He still wants to teach people history. He said he wants work at a museum, like the Smithsonian or National Geographic, “I think it would be cool to work somewhere like that!’ Ridge continued, “I can’t just sit around and do nothing after retirement, I need to do something fun!” said Mr. Ridge. He will also continue his adventure in skydiving, which he loves to do in the spare time that he has.