Boyer retires after 42 years in education

After working within the district for 42 years as an educator and bus driver, Rick Boyer of Stanton decided to retire from the Stanton Community School District.
Boyer’s teaching career first began in the fall of 1979. For three years, he worked as an agriculture teacher and FFA advisor at Oakland High School.
Following his experience at Oakland, he applied for a teaching position at Stanton in the fall of 1982, where he would continue his work as an agriculture teacher for 30 additional years.
Over the years he spent teaching, Boyer said the agriculture program witnessed many changes as technological advancements were made and the demographic in this field of work changed.
“I retired from teaching in 2012, and I just thought that it was probably time that somebody that had new ideas, new desire and that sort of thing would come in and do the job,” he said.
Boyer said his decision was also influenced by a change in his job’s responsibilities.
“They (the school district) had offered me to stay on at a halftime position and be shared with another district,” he said. “I decided that was not anything that I was really interested in, doing two schools.”
Though Boyer had not been teaching agriculture classes since 2012, he remained employed in Stanton as a bus driver for 12 years. He said he first began working as a driver right after graduating from high school, though he drove for many different districts before moving to Stanton.
During his time as a bus driver, Boyer said he noticed multiple changes in the landscape of his work as the years went on.
“When I first started, everything had a manual transmission,” he said. “And so automatic transmissions came into play, and that changed the landscape quite a bit. The other aspect was that, you know, when I first started too, all the buses were gasoline buses, and they are much more reliable today.”
Another change Boyer has noticed in recent years is that there are more safety requirements and features on school buses, including seatbelts.
After spending the past few years transporting students to both the Red Oak and Stanton schools, Boyer has decided to retire from this position as well in order to spend more time with his family during the fall months.
“I just decided that it was time that we wanted to do some additional camping and those types of things in the fall of the year,” he said. “Just not being tied down to that particular schedule on a consistent basis.”
Overall, Boyer’s favorite part about being employed within the Stanton School District was working with students who showed a deep interest in agriculture and associated fields.
“I always tried to tell the kids that if they weren’t having some fun and I wasn’t having a good time, then neither one of us were doing our jobs right,” he said. “That was probably the biggest thing that kept me in education.”