By Mary Wade Burnside
FAIRMONT — Growing up with a love of children and with several aunts who were teachers, Mary Harker always knew what kind of career she would pursue as an adult.
“I don’t remember ever wanting to do anything else,” said the Barrackville Elementary School Title 1 reading and math teacher. “I just wanted to be with the children.”
A native of Logan County, Harker graduated from Marshall University and then got her master’s degree from West Virginia University. But it was her husband, Larry Harker, a native of Fairmont, that brought her to Marion County.
“He is a minister and he was pastoring a church in my hometown,” Harker said. “We came up here back to his hometown.”
Harker taught third grade in Logan County for a few years before she moved to Fairmont, where she served as a substitute teacher for less than one year before she got a full-time position. She taught at Fairview Middle School for seven years and at Fairview Elementary for 18 years.
But when her husband got cancer, the two moved to Barrackville so he would be closer to the hospital where he was treated. And so when a position came open at Barrackville Elementary as a Title 1 teacher who helps students with reading and math difficulties, she took it.
She already had been a Title 1 teacher at Fairview Middle and enjoyed it.
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