Rose basketball highlights
Lewis stays busy in retirement
TUES. | 04-05-22 | FEATURES
When most people retire, they slow down and take a break. However, the opposite is true for Rose substitute Marie Lewis. Lewis is not only a substitute teacher, but is also a math, ACT and SAT tutor. She is also a volleyball referee. She did all of this nine years after her retirement as a Rose math teacher. While Lewis enjoys teaching and loves working with the students, that is not why she has continued to work.
“I sub, referee and tutor so I can travel,” Lewis said. “I pick up and go when I want to, [so] if there’s something I want to do, I just go do it.”
Lewis is looking forward to things getting back to normal so she can travel again.
“I was supposed to go to Israel in 2020 but that trip got canceled because of COVID,” Lewis said. “Gosh, I’m ready to travel.”
Lewis began teaching at E.B. Aycock while it was still a junior high school, and found herself face-to-face with a lack of care from the students towards their grades and futures. She decided to move to a high school where the students were proactive in getting their work done well.
“I kept looking until I found Rose,” Lewis said.
After switching to high school, she didn’t look back and continues to work with high school students even after her retirement.
Lewis was looking forward to working with high
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school students because of their drive to do well.
“[Rose] is very academically inclined and the students are very conscientious of their grades,” Lewis said.
While Lewis recognizes that there are great schools in Pitt County, she believes that Rose is set apart from the rest because of the diversity and the additional educational opportunities Rose offers.
Lewis also enjoyed working with all of the teachers. After nine years of retirement, Lewis still meets with other retired teachers.
“A lot of the teachers that have retired from here would meet once a month … and we’d sit and talk for hours,” Lewis said.
Out of all of her jobs though, refereeing is Lewis’ favorite job.
“[I] know people from all over the state that [referee] and [I] get to see how sports come together,” Lewis said. While Lewis works with volleyball the most, it is not the only sport she partakes in.
“I used to roller skate a lot, taught skate class for 20 years or more and [refereed] for roller hockey,” Lewis said. “I also ride a road bike, compete in the senior games for biking and have competed at the state level and won the gold.”
While working at Rose, Lewis worked with the student athletes outside of the classroom through extracurricular activities.
“I started the Dream Team in 1997-1998, and worked with students in the classroom and outside the classroom,” Lewis said.
Dream Team is an organization of student-athletes that is still running today. Dream Team has done Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes and works closely with the Exceptional Children (EC) program at Rose. Thanks to Lewis and her lasting impact, the community is able to benefit from everything Dream Team does.
Lewis is a jack of all trades and has continued to positively impact the students at Rose despite her retirement.
