Miss Hatcher’s Legacy
Miss Betty Joe Hatcher, my ninth-grade biology teacher, was known for her sharp angular features, short wavy brown hair, dark spectacles, and pragmatic flat shoes. She never married but dedicated her life to her passion: the physical sciences and nature.
In the classroom, she tolerated no nonsense and knew how to manage sometimes unruly teenagers. She seemed determined to garner only respect and the best from her students. I don’t recall anyone ever questioning her authority.
I attribute my knowledge of the sciences mostly to her, other than my gleanings through experience. Like tearing the wrapping from a gift, Miss Hatcher made me view the familiar as special. I had taken for granted the fields, woods, and pond surrounding me as a youth. Trees were part of my environment that I observed, climbed, or stood under for shade during steamy summer days.
Miss Hatcher’s classes studied living creatures, from the single-celled amoeba to more complicated mammals. After dissecting an earthworm, we tackled a frog floating in formaldehyde. My eyes stung from the fumes, my nose twitched from the pungent odor, and whatever knowledge I gained was offset by the reality of a creature whose life ended to become part of ignorant adolescents’ education.
We then studied flora, more to my liking. To ignite our curiosity, Miss Hatcher led us on a field trip to the woods behind our rural school. In the spring of 1967, girls at my high school typically wore skirts or dresses and pantyhose with stylish shoes, and boys wore nice pants and shirts. As we trekked into the woods, I focused on stepping gingerly among the briars and undergrowth to avoid snagging my stockings. Then, I became engrossed in the foliage Miss Hatcher pointed out, showing us how we could identify trees by the design and pattern of leaves.
Before this experience, I knew a few trees—oaks, pines, cedars, hollies, and dogwoods, which grew of their own volition in the woods around my house. But now I learned to distinguish several varieties of oaks, sweet gum, tulip poplar, hickory, birch, sassafras, elm, and others. I embraced the assignment to collect leaves, pin them to paper, and copy their names on each page.
Although considered a difficult educator and disciplinarian with high expectations, Miss Hatcher was among my favorite high school teachers. She passed on her legacy of love and respect for the natural world. Through her eyes, what I enjoyed as a child walking the woods and farmland became living forms awaiting discovery.
Miss Hatcher has left the natural world she so loved, but she remains a model educator who guides and impacts the lives of students in ways they may not appreciate for decades.
