Annette Kelley spent decades as a teacher, first in Sibley at the second grade level before moving to Virginia due to her husband’s military service, where she taught seventh and eighth grade, returning to Iowa for a job in Sioux Rapids and then finally Boone, where she and her husband retired in 2001. On Thursday morning, the Glenwood Place resident got the chance to go back into the classroom, this time at Fisher Elementary School, thanks to the assisted living facility’s “Dare to Dream” program.

“The teacher comes out in her every day. She likes to take roll call. We have a little group that gets together in the morning, and she always likes to make sure everybody’s there for that,” Glenwood Place Life Engagement Coordinator Melinda Beard said. “Everything through her life is trying to help others, and she loves to still learn and she loves to help other residents. So this one was really important for me to get her back in a classroom so she could have these memories.”

Kelley has lived at Glenwood Place for almost a year, and Beard added that she was right at home as she made her way through Brienna Wolfe’s and Joanna Ruddick’s second grade classrooms and finally, the gym for physical education, interacting with students and teachers alike.

“She was so excited this morning. I actually told her, when we got ready to come, I told her that I had a school that had called and needed help in their second grade classroom, and she said ‘Well I can do that.’ So off we went,” Beard said. “We came here, and you can tell she’s in her element.”

When asked what her favorite part of the day was, Kelley had a simple answer: seeing the kids.

“These kids are easy and wonderful, and I just plain love them,” she said.

Glenwood Place has another exciting “Dare to Dream” coming up in November, though the details are currently under wraps.