Sayre Spotlight 

John and Carolyn Hackworth
An Interview

 

Q. When and how did you become involved with Sayre School? 

A. Carolyn: When John began teaching at Sayre in the late 1960s following his graduation from Kenyon College, I was a writer for The Lexington Leader, Lexington’s afternoon newspaper at that time.  I found that our friends tended to be Sayre teachers who seemed to always have conversations about their students.  I began to envy their involvement with kids.  So when Donn Hollingsworth (Sayre Headmaster, 1961-1976)  began hiring for the next school year, I approached him about a teaching position.  He allowed me to observe a high school English teacher and a fourth grade teacher.  Incredibly, he gave me my choice between those two positions!  I chose the fourth grade position and thus began five wonderful years of being part of the Sayre faculty.

Some of those years were lean ones.  We often couldn’t be sure that there would be a pay check at the end of the month.  I can remember, too, when John became director of the Lower School that there were times when I helped him clean the bathrooms before an open house or teacher conferences.  Once we even shoveled all the snow in the back parking lot to allow cars to drop off students.  We never minded that total involvement.  Rather, we relished being part of such a close-knit group of teachers.

As a fourth grade teacher, I became interested in children’s literature and began to work with a professor from the University of Kentucky’s College of Library Science, sponsoring some of her students to do programs with my students.  In those days, many elementary teachers took their students to the old Lexington Public Library in Gratz Park.  As a result of my contacts with the Library Science department and the public library, I decided to pursue a graduate degree in Library Science.  Eventually that led to a position at the old library in Gratz Park.

A. John: Donn Hollingsworth gave me a job right out of Kenyon College.  After teaching in the fifth and sixth grades at Sayre for 5 ½ years, I followed Amos Lawrence as Director of the Lower School in January of 1976.  I remained in that position for 3 ½ years.

Q. Share a little about your experiences living overseas.  What did you enjoy the most?  What did you miss about the United States?

A. Carolyn: On a whim, in 1979 John and I signed two-year contracts with the American Community School of Kuwait and left our home in Lexington for an adventure in the Middle East.  That journey eventually led us to two more countries in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, where we spent a total of twenty years in international schools.  John taught, then eventually became principal of the high school in Abu Dhabi, I was the librarian in all those schools.

The schools in all three countries were a central part of the life of the expatriate community.  We had the unique opportunity to meet families from all over the world.  I loved the daily contact with children ranging from preschool age to high school students.  The relationships with those students and their families were the highlight of our years in international teaching.  Many of those families and students stay in touch, particularly now with Facebook.

What I missed most during the twenty years we lived abroad was my family!  We missed high school and college graduations of nieces and nephews, family gatherings for holidays and birthdays.  AND I missed the change of seasons.  Whenever Kentucky was experiencing a change, I created that change in the library.  The winter months brought paper snowflakes hanging from the ceiling, with the air conditioning pushed down a few notches.

A. John: Living and working overseas was such a wonderful opportunity.  For example, the American Community School of Abu Dhabi was comprised of about 50% American students while the other 50% were from nearly 50 other countries.  What a great cultural exchange!

The opportunities to travel during those 20 years were also wonderful.  We traveled to dozens of countries in Europe, Asia, and Africa.  We spent several summers taking graduate courses from U.S. colleges in Athens and then in Mallorca, Spain.  We traveled to nearly 20 Greek Islands, took 8 trips to India, and did two extended treks in the high Himalayas among lots of other travel experiences.

I agree with Carolyn that we missed lots of family events since we were overseas so long.  However, my brother tells me that I was lucky not to have had to sit through his daughter’s ballet and piano recitals, which would have likely happened had we been here!

Q. What are your current roles and connections to Sayre?

A. Carolyn: When we returned to the U.S. in 1999, I was unable to find a library position.  So I became involved in teaching English as a Foreign Language for foreign adults at the Carnegie Center.  This role in ESL tutoring has given me the opportunity to become involved in tutoring several foreign students at Sayre during those years.  It has been a wonderful opportunity to continue to engage in the foreign community while living in the U.S.

A. John: This is my 11^th year in admissions at Sayre.

Q. Tell us about your active involvement in the Lexington Community.

A. Carolyn: In the summer of 2008, I established a small walking tour company, “Historic Downtown Walking Tours,” which has provided opportunities to meet people from all over the country and several foreign countries while I share our historic Gratz Park neighborhood with them.  I am also a docent at the Hunt-Morgan House one day a week; I maintain a small library for the residents at Ashland Terrace, a retirement home for women; I teach English to a group of African refugee women at the Carnegie Center, where I am on the Board of Trustees, and I do a live radio broadcast, reading the Courier Journal for the visually impaired, for Central Kentucky Radio Eye each week.

A. John: I have served on the Board of Trustees of the Blue Grass Trust for 8 years, 3 of those as president.  Currently I am on that Board and Chair of the Hunt-Morgan House Committee.  I have also been president of the Gratz Park Neighborhood Association for about 8 years.  We both enjoy living, working and being involved with downtown Lexington.