After 45 years, beloved South Glens Falls teacher Karen Carayiannis has retired.
“My last day was June 30th,” she told Glens Falls Living, sitting in a rocking chair sipping iced tea on the porch of her Fortsville log cabin. “I know, because on July 1st, I had to make my first payment for my health insurance!”
Mrs. Carayiannis’ remarkable career began in the fall of 1967 when she was a third-grade student teacher for another South Glens Falls teaching legend, Glenna Shanahan, at Harrison Avenue.
She was a senior at Plattsburgh State at the time, and originally from Long Island, but South Glens Falls quickly became home.
“Bill Wetherbee, who had just started as superintendent of schools, told me when I graduated, I had a job,” she said. “So in the fall of 1968, I started teaching full-time in the third grade at Harrison Avenue.”
And then, after two years, she quit.
“My best friend Wendy and I had always wanted to teach together in a small school district, so we both went to Cape Cod and I taught first grade at a small school outside of Hyannis,” she said. “But Wendy was getting married the next year, and after a year, I called Bill Wetherbee and asked, “Can I come home?”
He said, “‘Yes, I have a job for you at Harrison Avenue.’ So, I came back home.”
Two years later, she met John Carayiannis at a party at Whit and Joyce Butterfield’s home in the village. He was the principal at the newly opened Tanglewood Elementary School. They married in February of 1974, and that December their daughter Elizabeth was born.
“I quit again,” she said, giggling. For eight years she raised Elizabeth while doing some substitute teaching, mostly at Ballard Elementary, and filling in for maternity leaves for dear friends Kris Nolan and Karen Johns.
“In 1982, I went back to work, and got a job at Moreau, filling in a leave in second grade for two years,” she remembered. “Then there was an opening at Moreau in first grade, and I took it, and I taught first grade there from then on.”
In the late 1990s, she and John took a year off and traveled the world, visiting Greece and Alaska and Florida. Shortly after the trip, John was diagnosed with a brain tumor. He died in May 2000.
“I took some time off after he died,” she said. “But the next week, I was back at work. I taught mornings and Bobbie Porter taught afternoons.”
Now, closing in on her 74th birthday, she is retired.
“I won’t substitute, but I will help Joyce Kerr, who I’ve taught with for more than 20 years, but I will be a volunteer,” she said.
She’ll also no doubt lend a hand to Marissa (Carpenter) Macey, who has the honor of taking over her classroom at Moreau.
Mrs. Macey, a South High graduate, said, “She is an incredible human being. Karen certainly cannot be replaced. I am lucky enough to have had the opportunity to spend time with her and she gave me some tricks of the trade. She has also said that she would come back and help out often and I am certainly going to hold her to it. Although I really hope she spends some time for herself. She deserves it.”
What will she do in retirement?
Well, if one evening last week is any indication, she’ll be welcoming well-wishers coming by with gifts and laughs. The night this reporter was there, longtime friends Jeff and Leeann McCabe came by with gifts, as did a group of moms whose children were in Karen’s final class.
“I loved what I’ve done,” she said. “I can’t imagine doing anything else. I really have enjoyed it. I’ve loved working for Bill Wetherbee and with Bill Elder.”
Mr. Elder is a longtime school board member and longtime friend who Karen mentioned in her brief retirement letter to the district.
“Bill Elder is the epitome of class and professionalism who led the board twice,” she said. “I ended my letter with ‘Thank you Bill Elder.’”
Does she know how much she touched generations of students and their families?
“It’s been great touching so many lives and having them touch mine, and then to teach the kids of students I taught,” she said.
One of her favorite students, who unabashedly said she was his favorite teacher, was Timmy Pratt, the State Trooper tragically killed in 2016.
Retiring during a pandemic is not ideal, she admitted.
“It has been so hard,” she said. “There were no field trips this spring, no picnics, no trips to see our friends at Home of the Good Shepherd. There were so many activities we couldn’t do.
“But we did hatch chickens, and every two weeks I would deliver schoolwork to my students.”
She also would drive to their homes and read to them out of the back of her Subaru.
“Ironically, I think I got closer to my 16 kids and their families this year than I have in many years.”
Will there be a formal retirement dinner?
“Oh no! There will be a Moreau family picnic at Butterfields, but that’s it.”
What’s on tap this summer?
Her log cabin needs a new roof, she’s going to have a few more trees taken down, and she plans to reseed her front lawn.
“I don’t mind my own company,” she said. “That doesn’t mean I’m lonely or alone. I’m thrilled to read a stack of books on my nightstand. It’s nice to have that time.”
And she’ll watch her grandchildren, using the teaching skills she honed over 45 years.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said. “This is home. This is always home.”
P.S. We asked several former students for their thoughts on Karen Carayiannis’ retirement - read their thoughts here!
