What makes you tick?  Is it travel, adventure, crafts, time with your family?  If you were Paint Branch English teacher Ms. Adkins, the answer would be “all of the above.”

            The adventurous Ms. Adkins, who has travelled the world, has been teaching English for over 33 years and has spent time at six different schools.  Throughout her teaching career one goal she has always maintained is getting “kids to be more independent and be creative.”

     Senior Kendall Peele finds Ms. Adkins’ class to be “very easy as long as you do the work and take notes; if you don’t do the work you will fail the class.” Junior Redet Woldemariam reinforces the need to take notes, “Having your notes is helpful because you can use them on quizzes.”

        Seniors Dulcinia Rubio and Jessica Ford found her “class discussion can be very helpful.”Ms. Adkins has been teaching here at Paint Branch for twelve years. What brought her to PB in 1992 was that her son was set to become a student here.  She would sponsor cheerleading while he was at football practice so their schedules would not conflict each other.

        She taught AP here for four years, and then left in 1996. She returned in 2005 to teach her son and has been here ever since.  Her plans for retirement are to start doing pottery again and to have a show with them. She adds that “a pottery show usually takes up to a hundred pots.”

        Some of her past adventures include white-water rafting down both the Colorado and the Gauley Rivers, flying in a hot-air balloon, and learning the art of fencing. Another part of retirement is that she’s looking forward to crossing something off her “bucket list,” which is to see Australia. She has already travelled all over Europe, except for Spain, and the entire continental United States.

        Many of her students found her as delightful as can be, and Nolawit Esayas says, “I LOVE MS. ADKINS!”