Story & Photos by Beth Christian
Broschart
The Parsons Advocate
HAMBLETON – Tucker County Schools have several new faces this year, rounding out their teachers and service personnel. At Tucker Valley Elementary Middle School, those include Emilee Amaro and William Rob Rothenburgh.
Before coming to teach at Tucker Valley Elementary Middle School, Amaro taught in Hoke County in North Carolina teaching art to students in grades kindergarten through 5th grade. Now she is teaching second grade at TVEMS.
“I am so excited,” Amaro said. “I bring a lot of diversity and culture to my students. In Hoke County, we had a transient town with a military base just a few miles away. Here in Tucker County, I am able to bring a lot of the things I learned in North Carolina here.”
Amaro said one of her reasons for coming to the area was her husband grew up in Tucker County.
“We had the opportunity to move back home and took advantage of that,” she said. “I am excited to be here.”
She said she likes how close the parents are to the kids and how involved they are in the education process.
“It’s really important. This is a small town and everyone seems to be really involved,” she said.
Outside of school, Amaro and her husband both work at C.J.s Pizzeria, and she loves to paint.
“I have a small business called Amazing Creations and I paint on cups and shoes and do handcrafted and hand painted custom orders,” Amaro said.
William Rob Rothenburgh grew up in New York, but now lives in Tucker County.
“I am glad to be at Tucker Valley Elementary Middle School,” he said. “After people retired and everyone got situated, I ended up here full time after substituting for two years.”
Rothenburgh said he enjoys being around others and said he thinks he possesses great people skills.
“I enjoy being around the kids and they enjoy being around me,” he said. “I like the area. My grandparents retired here and I came here 20 years ago when I got out of the Army.”
In his spare time, Rothenburgh said he enjoys bow hunting, fishing, playing golf and spending time with his daughter.
Jamie Chenoweth is one of the new faces at Tucker County High School. He teaches math 3 and math 4 in the first term and math 2 in the second term.
“I came here from Berkeley Springs High School where I taught for 11 years,” Chenoweth said. “I worked one year at Davis Thomas Elementary Middle School.”
Chenoweth said he taught science before coming to TCHS and said he is familiar with the block scheduling.
“My background knowledge for math is related to science, and I think I can help a lot of kids apply the skills,” he said. “I think what they are trying to do here at TCHS is apply that with STEM and STEAM classes to integrate math with the sciences and tech trades. I love what they are doing and I think math should be relevant to something. It keeps kids from shying away from math when it has application.”
Outside of school, Chenoweth said he enjoys adventure.
“I moved to Tucker County to ski, kayak, cave and spend time in the woods,” he said. “I have friends up here and was traveling here every other weekend so I decided to move up here.”
Douglas Rabel teaches U.S. Studies to 10th grade students at Tucker County High School. He taught at Fairmont Regional Medical Center before coming to TCHS.
“I bring quality cooperation education skills to Tucker County and offer students the ability to work together in groups so they can learn,” Rabel said. “It is a different way of doing things.”
Outside of teaching, he said he enjoys cross fit training and martial arts as well as gardening.
“So far, my favorite part of my job is the commute,” he said. “I drive from Philippi to Tucker County High School. The photos I take are great. I have the best commute ever.”
Isaac Kahler teaches freshman and junior technical math at Tucker County High School. He said his program is aimed specifically at students taking career and technical courses.
“In particular, those in agriculture and carpentry because they use micrometers and they need to take careful measurements,” Kahler said. “Someday they may run their own businesses, so I have a unit on personal finance and measurement. My focus is on a shift from formal to applied mathematics.”
He said he took last year off, and the five years before that, he taught at TCHS in the math department.
“Before that, I was in Alaska where I taught and was a coach,” Kahler said. “I worked with kids in an outward bound program where we took kids from the city and trained them and took them to the Alaskan Outback for a two week project.”
He said he enjoys going to places with incredible beauty and mountains and teaches math. He enjoys playing music, reading books, watching movies, going fast on his motorcycle and enjoying outdoor sports.
The rest of the new instructors and service personnel will be featured in the next edition of The Parsons Advocate.
