Miss Lou Thatcher a familiar figure to all who have attended Campbell County Elementary School, in Alexandria, Kentucky, and many others who attended schools in the county during the past (50) years, has completed her fiftieth year of teaching and is retiring from the Campbell County School system. Miss Thatcher who is (70) years old taught her last class Friday when school closed for the summer.

Fifty years ago she began teaching at Poplar Creek, Kentucky, after studying at Eastern Normal School, now Eastern State Teachers' College at Richmond, Kentucky. In those days, schools were quite small and students walked for miles to learn the fundamentals of reading, writing and arithmetic.

" I began by teaching the first eight grades in a one room school house," Miss Thatcher said. "soon it was narrowed down to four grades, then two and since consolidation in the county school, has been just the first grade."

Miss Thatcher has taught in the Alexandria school for the past (33) years. She cannot begin to estimate the number of boys and girls she taught in those years, she said . " Many of my former pupils are all over the world now", Miss Thatcher added, as they were in the last war, too. I am glad to be retiring but there is a sadness about it." Her sisters, Miss Maggie Thatcher, retired two years ago after teaching (50) years in the Campbell County schools also. Her sister Miss Blanche Thatcher started her career in the Campbell County School system and is teaching in the Covington, Kentucky system.

Lou Thatcher was born 26, March 1874.

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