Brenda Leek
By Deby Jo Ferguson
Staff writer
Brenda Leek, 55, is the daughter of Dallas and Geneva Crowder. She is married to Mark Leek, who retired from Clay County Schools as superintendent. Brenda and Mark have three children, John, Adam and Chloe and what Brenda describes as one special grandson named Dallas.
Brenda works at Hayesville Elementary School as the director of the After School-Summer Program.
“I graduated from HHS in 1987 and started driving the school bus during my sophomore year. After having my driver’s license for 90 days I started driving the school bus on day 91. It wasn’t that hard because you couldn’t drive more than 32 mph. Why, you could learn to drive a 747 going 32 mph.” Leek laughed.
Brenda continued to drive the bus until she graduated high school. Although she has driven 11 of her 20 years working at Hayesville Elementary School, she didn’t start her career there.
“After graduating I turned toward the medical field and worked as a medical assistant for 15 years before changing careers. I really wanted to spend more time with my own children. In the medical field you don’t leave by a clock, you go home when the last patient is seen and all the charts are filed, so I took a huge pay cut and changed my career,” she said.
According to Leek the decision was one of her best because it allowed her to be the mother she always wanted to be.
“At Hayesville’s Elementary School there was the need for someone to work with special needs children as a custodian aide. That’s someone who helps more with their care than academics. That’s how I got my foot in the door at the school.
“This allowed me more time with my own kids and at school I got to see the true beauty of these special needs children. I spent two years with them and how do I even put it into words, it was an honor, a total honor to work with them. Special needs children will teach you what it’s like to give unconditional love,” Leek said.
She then went to work with the kindergarten class where she continued for the next 15 years.
“Kindergarten is also a class I have enjoyed teaching so much. I watch them come to class that first day in August as just babies and by the time school lets out at the end of the year, they’ve become little students," she said. "When you personally spend eight hours a day with a child who is 5 years old you see all the changes taking place as they grow and it’s astounding.
Although kindergarten is Leek’s choice to teach, she admitted that preschool students would be a fun class to teach also.
“I was in the kindergarten class with Kim Staten, we had the “Duck” class and it worked out well. Kim taught the kids all day and I sorta had the mama role. If a student was sick, in trouble a lot or needed something they came to me. When a child is sick and they want you, it’s then you know they trust you. A child trusting you and knowing that you’re a safe place for them, well what more could you ask for as a teacher,” Leek said.
Leek noted that over the years that teaching has changed a lot.
“The changes at school through the years have been through technology which has had huge developments and the state has changed what is demanded of the teachers. The amount that is on the teachers and the quality of work from the teachers in Clay County is amazing, they do a fantastic job,” she said.
With Leek’s graduation from Western Carolina University only a year away, the options are available for her to continue her dreams.
“I will have a BK degree, birth to kindergarten teaching, and will have to decide if I want to continue what I’m doing at the school or go back into the classroom. I have some time to think about it,” she said.
“For myself, I’d just like to know that whatever I do in the future I will still make a difference in the life of a student. For the kids, I want everyone of them to know how important they are. Clay County Schools wouldn’t be the same without a single one of them and every person here makes a difference. Without even one of them, it wouldn’t be the same.
“If I can accomplish one thing for them in the future, it would be to see that each child knows they are important. It doesn’t matter what they wear, what they do or don’t have or what their last name is. I was 100 percent not a 'name brand' child but I had a good mama and daddy,” Leek said.
“Some kids don’t realize how important they are, so for the future this would be my quest — to see them believe and feel that they are special because each and every child is someone special,” Leek concluded.