CAL fourth grade teacher to step down after 42 years in education

Something about the pace of life in Iowa converted Indiana native Bill Parker to a future lifelong resident of the Hawkeye State.
Parker, a fourth-grade teacher at CAL, said he first came to Iowa as a student at William Penn University in Oskaloosa and knew he had found a new home.
“In the northwest corner of Indiana, everything is really fast. If someone says they’ll pick you up at 6 p.m., you better ready at 5:30 because they’re going to pick you up then,” he said. “Out here when I came to college in Iowa, when they would say we’re going to go downtown at 8 p.m., if we got going by 9 p.m., that was pretty good.
“That change of pace was what I thought was really fun,” he added.
That pace of life and the small town, community-oriented feel of rural Iowa eventually led Parker to a 40-plus year teaching career in Iowa’s public school system. But now, after a three-year stint as a fourth-grade teacher at CAL, Parker said he plans to retire after the final bell sounds this week.
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