Veteran educator Hixson reflects on tenured career
Lois Hixson has found success in everything she’s served up.
The 20-year Auroran has gone by many different titles in her professional career, not limited to coach, friend, sponsor, adviser, mentor, mother and educator.
After hanging up her coaching whistle one year ago, Hixson is set to retire from teaching at the end of the 2022-23 school year.
Hixson, a 34-year teaching veteran, explained that her philosophy of education has changed over the years, but the one thing that’s remained the same is helping kids.
“Like the old cliche, ‘If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well’ and I hope that exemplifies my career,” she explained in a sit-down conversation. “Just be the best you can be, always. I try to tell the kids that it doesn’t have to be number one, but just do your best.”
Hixson ended up in the education world thanks in large part to one of her own teachers in high school nudging her in that direction.
She really had no idea or direction of what she wanted to be when she grew up. Thankfully, her own business teacher helped light that fire.
“She told me I would be good at this (teaching),” Hixson commented. “I still have the notes she wrote me with the pros and cons of why getting into education is a good, life-long career. I’m very grateful for that. She saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself.”
With a degree from UNK in hand, Hixson started teaching at Douglas Community Schools, now known as the Freeman district.
A year later, Hixson and her husband moved to the Ewing area and taught at Clearwater before taking a job at Chambers High School, where she spent over a decade as both a teacher and volleyball coach.
The Hixsons moved once more to Aurora, where Lois has taught for the last 20 years. She’s always been big on family and allowing her children to grow up and graduate from Aurora was a perfect fit.
“It’s been nice because there’s a lot of exposure here to different activities and academics,” Hixson pointed out.
At all of her stops, Hixson has been a business teacher, something that’s always been a big interest for her.
“I took a lot of business classes and had some success as far as competitions and things,” Hixson said. “The keyboarding and accounting aspect has always been fun for me.”
In recent years, Hixson shifted into the veteran role at AHS and been the one others look to as one of the mentors for new teachers, or even just new educators to Aurora.
She remembers what it was like at one point coming to Aurora, despite being a 14-year teaching veteran in her own right, learning from the likes of Dave Long and Julie Jensen -- two people who had a big impact on her starting out in the district.
“Moving into the business department at Aurora High School was an amazing opportunity, especially with Dave Long and Julie Jensen,” Hixson explained. “I was very grateful to work with that level of integrity and those educators.”
One of the things Hixson has taken the most pride in during her time in Aurora has been the personal finance class, taught to all sophomores. The class features everything around managing money, including saving, budgeting and working a checking account.
It may seem old school, but Hixson wants everyone to be able to know how to do a simple process as well as the advances of credit and debit.
AHS has been offering personal finance to sophomores for most of Hixson’s time at Aurora, long before it was required by the state, which it is now.
“I really appreciate the vision of Dave and Julie to say we need this and need it now. That’s been something that was unique for me,” Hixson said.
FBLA
Along with her teaching and coaching duties at Aurora, Hixson has also served as the FBLA adviser for all 20 years, something she had no part of at her other teaching stops.
“It’s been eye-opening,” Hixson said. “The level Aurora FBLA maintains throughout the state -- the level of excellence, expectations, it was very eye-opening, but exciting.”
FBLA maintains quite a schedule throughout the year with fundraisers, service activities, leadership opportunities and competitions.
Aurora has been quite successful on the FBLA competition front, something Hixson wants little credit for, tipping her cap to all the students for the dedication over the years.
“There’s something for everyone,” she said. “You can be the person who makes a poster for the committee or be the leader of the committee. Find something they enjoy.”
In fact, Aurora recently had 24 kids qualify for the national convention this summer in Atlanta, the most in Hixson’s tenure. She herself was named FBLA advisor of the year.
If there was any doubt on Hixson’s dedication level, she plans on seeing the entire process though, delaying her retirement by one month to help those kids through nationals.
“It’s been so exciting to see the success they work so hard for,” she said.
Keeping up with the times
One of the biggest changes for any teacher over the years has come in technology, and Hixson has plenty of first-hand accounts of that nature in the business department.
She said it’s been quite a challenge, but exciting at the same time. She’s attended the Nebraska Career Conference in Kearney multiple times, noting it’s something she never wanted to miss.
“The way we present content has had to change, but I think technology has helped with that,” Hixson remarked. “All we had was a chalkboard when I was in school. The visual piece of education has become very important because our kids are glued to screens. We have to meet them where they’re at.”
While she felt like maybe that was starting to become a distraction, she also added all she wants from her kids is to be curious, lifelong learners.
“The world is at their fingertips,” she said. “You can Google anything and find the answer. Do it, don’t sit back and be lazy. I just want kids to be curious and invested.”
Hixson remembers a time when she was excited because she got an upgrade in memory for an Apple IIe computer because it was going to be so much more powerful, she recalled.
One thing she’s always strived for is trying to get a snapshot of the workplace and gauge their expectations, so she can match those through her education.
That became difficult in the spring of 2020 when Hixson and her peers were faced with the challenge of teaching from home during the COVID pandemic.
“That face-to-face interaction and social piece was missing,” she said. “I spent a lot of time preparing for those classes, but they just didn’t execute well.”
Through the return-to-school process the last three years, Hixson noted it was difficult at first to reset those expectations.
While she was thankful the shutdown from in-person school was just a single quarter, she said it was tough for a time after that to get everything caught back up.
Just last week, Hixson wrote on her classroom calender the last day of school, with the possibility of some excitement behind that date.
She’s not sure how it will feel once August rolls around, but one thing is certain -- for the first time maybe in her entire life, the month of July is wide open and it’s going to stay that way.
“I told my husband I’m taking July off,” she said with a smile. “I want to pursue some things, but I’ve never had a June or July off.”
The biggest thing is she’s just looking to have more flexibility in her life with her kids now living in the south, two in Texas and the third in Arizona.
For her, though, she’s proud of her teaching career and where it’s taken her.
“When students leave our business department, they are miles ahead,” Hixson said. “Things like writing resumes and the job interview process. We’ve produced students in all kinds of areas and I’ve loved all of it.”