Joyce G. Zuercher

Joyce Gingerich Zuercher began reading at age 3 when she had to stay in bed for an extended time after a leg injury, and her teacher father decided she might as well learn to read. She began her formal education in a “district school” (one room) in rural Iowa before attending Grades 2-5 at another small school, Green Center, out in the country between Parnell and Kalona, Iowa. She taught for two years, starting at age 19, in a one-room school in western Nebraska, and returned to teaching decades later, after raising children, at a three-room school in Appalachian eastern Kentucky. She is still a volunteer reading tutor at Hesston (Kan.) Elementary School.

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