MIDLAND, Texas — Whether she's singing, laughing or giving you a wave, Barbara Jean Bolden Yarbrough is going to make her presence known in the halls of South Elementary School.
"I just enjoy meeting and greeting people and seeing the smiles on their faces," she said.
She's brought smiles to hundreds of students faces in Midland for over 60 years now.
"When I first started teaching here in Midland, Texas, 1959-I got off the bus August the 26th-and I thought oh lord I wasn't ready for what I was seeing then. I said this place is just God forsaken," Yarbrough said.
However to her surprise, this place ended up becoming home. In 1975, she became an art teacher at South Elementary, but art wasn't the only thing being taught in Ms. Yarbrough's classroom.
"The goal when I started teaching and I looked over my classroom and saw the people I was working with they got to know they can get out, they can get an education, and this is where it comes from," she said.
Class after class, she began instilling life skills in her students.
"It's about to what kind of impact, how is it going to impact your job opportunities, so that's what we started doing, that's what I learned to do in class," said Yarbrough.
There are sSkills she's seen pass through generations and generations of her students.
"This little girl said 'My Grandma said she taught them to crochet and she's teaching us to crochet' so it's passing it down," she said. "I had one to call me say 'Guess what I'm doing?'. I said 'What?'. He said 'I'm doing illustrations.' You just don't know what an impact it's going to be."
As she continues making impacts on students, she gives thanks to the men and women who came before her.
"All the women in the neighborhood that I came in contact with, they pushed getting an education because this is what it's all about," said Yarbrough, "and my Grandpa who was the blacksmith who always said 'Say Good Morning Mr. Howard'; that was my job to greet people and ask them questions and give them a smile because they might not get that during the day and if people don't like that about me, I can't help them," said Yarbrough.