Brooke Farnsworth – LRHS News
(LAKEWOOD RANCH, FL) – Lakewood Ranch students and staff will have big shoes to fill on Feb. 2. Exceptional Student Education (ESE) department chair Donna Dooley will retire after 37 years of teaching.
“What I’m going to miss most,” said Mrs. Dooley. “Is the structure of knowing what is going to happen throughout the day.” Oddly enough, Dooley said she will miss the sound Assistant Principal Valencia Lowen’s voice on the intercom at the end of the day.
Another thing Dooley will miss about Lakewood Ranch is how respectable the students are to each other and members of the staff. Whenever a teacher would walk down the hall, a student would open the door for them. She finds that this school is filled with fun, kind kids.
Dooley looks forward to simple luxuries of the retired life.
“What I look forward to the most,” she said, ” is sleeping in, drinking coffee anytime of days, and getting together with friends and family.”
But what she is really excited about is that she now has the chance to indulge in a few hobbies. These include; learning how to sew, taking vocational courses, tap dancing, and playing the keyboard. A longtime project she wanted to get done is to put in a second story to her home.