Cherie Speer

I started my teaching career in Houston where I taught for 2 years before moving back home to Abilene. I taught for 3 years at Cooper High School, then went back to school and became a geologist because all I needed was the geology - I had so much science background already. I did geology for a while, but I missed teaching. I had left teaching because I had a really bad experience with an administrator back in the early 80s. I didn't realize that I could just ask for a change to a different high school - I was very young and naive. When I went back to teach at Wiley High School, I taught there for 27 years, teaching regular chemistry, pre-AP chemistry, regular biology, AP Biology, and IPC. I was just recently inducted into their Hall of Fame for my teaching and guidance with the students. I figured that I taught 5,000 kids in my span of teaching, and I know I influenced a lot of girls and boys to go on and become doctors, dentists, lawyers, accountants - kids that would tell me they'd never liked science before until they had me. I was very passionate about science, and I tried to help the girls realize that they could do anything, because my dad was a doctor and he influenced me that I could do anything that I put my mind to. He gave me that confidence, so I tried to instill that confidence, not just the subject matter, in the kids that I taught as well. I have a bottle of notes throughout the years that the kids wrote me and sent to me. I retired in May 2022, and I've worked ever since I was probably 14, starting at a grocery store being a checker and sacking groceries.