Background:

Mrs. Leigh Gregory is a chemistry teacher in the Cape Henry community with the utmost passion for her job and helping students. During most of her childhood, Mrs. Gregory lived in New York, a state which she loves dearly. After New York, Mrs. Gregory moved to Georgia, as most of her family resided in the state of peaches. Mrs. Gregory went on to get a masters in Chemistry at Clemson.

Interests:

Her interests are teaching chemistry, which was apparent when taking the interview with her; she was helping two of her Chem students work out problems and truly learn the concept of chem, as she always does with no complaints and only smiles. Mrs. Gregory also “lives in a zoo” with all of her animals in including three cats and one dog. She also is fascinated with Europe and loves Italy, having been there recently.

Something most people don’t know about her:

Mrs. Gregory, before becoming a Chemistry teacher for these past 10 years, was a patent lawyer for 22 years, quite unhappily she added.

Best experience:

Her best experience has been finding teaching at 40, she credits her finding of teaching to having saved her from her dead-end job as a patent lawyer – she felt overwhelmingly stuck in her job as a lawyer. Although it’s obvious teachers make much less than lawyers, Mrs. Gregory wasn’t in either business for the money, she was in them to make her happy, and she found that teaching and being around her students did.

Toughest experience:

Her toughest experience was graduating high school and starting college at sixteen years old. Although she was exceedingly smart, she found that it was hard to be a younger kid surrounded by people nearing their twenties and felt she didn’t fit in as much as she would have if she’d graduated with her class.

Accomplishments:

Despite it being her toughest experience, graduating at 16 is Mrs. Gregory’s greatest accomplishment, along with her discovery of teaching.

Lessons Learned:

You need to love your work or getting up every day will be miserable.

Classroom management.

Hopes and Plans For Future:

Mrs. Gregory doesn’t have many set goals and dreams for her future self as of now, but she says she’ll keep teaching until she becomes bored with the job, and retire in Clemson – a place she loves and has always yearned to settle -, maybe visiting her daughter in New York, her hometown, her once and a while.