CONTRIBUTED PHOTO Dana and Al Craven, formerly of State Center, recently retired from the West Marshall School District, having helped shape young minds academically and on the playing field and court for decades.

STATE CENTER — Love, marriage and a shared bond of teaching and coaching. Dana and Al Craven recently retired from the West Marshall School District, having helped shape young minds academically and on the playing field and court. They have moved to Florida to enjoy fun in the sun, but fondly look back on their time in State Center.

“My whole teaching career has been at West Marshall, so I just completed 36 years and never left,” Dana said with a laugh. “Al and I got married, and we just stayed there. It was a great place, a great community to raise our girls…this will make me sound old, but I had my first third generation student. That really dates me, but it’s kind of cool to be like, oh my goodness, I taught your grandpa.”

Dana ended her career on a high note, being awarded the Teacher of the Year honor by the Melbourne Masons. The presentation was from former third grade student, Lucas White.

A native of Manchester, Iowa, she graduated from West Delaware High School in 1985. She went on to study at Wartburg College in Waverly, Class of 1989. She earned a degree in elementary education and an endorsement in reading, as well as a coaching license. That May, she began the job search, and interviewed at West Marshall.

“(The school) was looking for three elementary teachers and they needed a volleyball coach. I played volleyball in high school and a couple years in college, so that interested me a lot,” she recalled. “I was offered the job right away, and it was a first grade, a third grade or a fifth grade position, and they let me pick, because I was the first one they interviewed. And I went in the middle and took third grade.”

She taught third grade for 28 years before switching.

“When I turned 50, I just kind of decided I needed a change. A Title I reading job came up, so the last eight years of my teaching career I was our K2 title reading teacher at the elementary,” she said. “I loved it because I got to work with all the students instead of just one grade level.”

Al, who is from Nevada, Iowa, graduated high school in 1986 with the goal of becoming a PE teacher. He spent one year attending Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville before transferring to William Penn University.

“I had a chance to work with the women’s basketball program there. I graduated from there in 1991 and took a job in San Antonio, Texas for a half a year, and moved back and started subbing at West Marshall, because one of my previous teachers was the principal there, and that’s where I met Dana,” he recalled.

They dated for a year and got married on April 16, 1994.

Teaching jobs at that time, they said, were hard to come by. Al went back to school and got a degree in elementary education. He then worked for a couple of years as a PE instructor at Colo-NESCO and Collins-Maxwell.

“I really wanted to be in the same district as Dana, so I got a special ed job at West Marshall in 1999,” he said. “I taught sixth, seventh and eighth grade middle school special ed, and also taught some sixth, seventh and eighth grade health.”

Daughter Alarie was born in 1996, followed by Ashlyn three years later. Dana decided to step away from volleyball coaching to focus on her young family. Al took over coaching volleyball. He also had experience coaching middle school football and basketball, plus high school basketball.

“I was a track runner in high school, so I’ve always been involved with the track program at all the schools I’ve worked at,” he added.

Alarie got interested in volleyball so Al also became a coach at the Iowa Heart Volleyball Association, the oldest club volleyball organization in Iowa, coaching for 14 years. In 2013, he received the USAV Iowa Region Service Award.

Dana spent the last six years coaching middle school girls track and the last eight coaching the school swim team. The couple got to coach middle school track together the last five years.

Al also served as the district’s driver’s ed instructor and worked as a substitute bus driver.

“We just always felt it was really important to be involved in the school district,” Dana said. “That’s why we lived where we taught. I enjoyed coaching at the middle school level, because it was all former students that I had at the elementary, and so it was fun to see them grow up. I really love the small school setting.”

After enjoying holidays, breaks and vacations in Florida, the Cravens decided it was the ideal spot to retire. Last August, they bought a lot, and started building their house that October, with the work finalized about two months ago.

“Alarie and her husband Eric live in Huntsville, Alabama, and we are going to be first time grandparents in early September,” Dana said.

In retirement, the couple plans to pursue substitute teaching opportunities.

Dana said she never wavered in her decision to be an educator. She recalled her dad working for nearly 40 years at a factory job he disliked.

“He just always told me, I don’t care what you do for a profession, but be sure you do something that you enjoy getting up and doing every day. I guess I’ve always said I don’t get up and go to work­ — I get to get up and go to school,” she said.