Starting Over: ; For Some, Career Change Re-Energizes, Renews Enthusiasm

By Bob Schwarz

bobschwarz@wvgazette.com

After she practiced law 23 years, Debbie Sink decided she would rather teach high school math.

She had two children by then, the elder a teenager.

She had gone to college the first time thinking she might be a teacher. Other subjects caught her attention, and she ended up majoring in economics. Then she went to law school, spent 16 years with Bowles Rice McDavid Graff & Love and another seven years as in- house counsel at BB&T.

“I was wondering about that teaching thing,” she said. “I had a great job, but it was time for a change. All those interests had simmered beneath the surface all those years.”

She left BB&T in July 2005 and enrolled a few weeks later at West Virginia State University, retaking the three semesters of calculus she had long ago taken, and adding advanced math and education classes.

She approached her husband, Jackson Kelly lawyer Bob McLuskey, who said the family could manage on one income while she retrained herself. “That was a luxury,” Sink said. “I didn’t have to try to work at the same time.”

She wasn’t one of those lawyers who prepare cases for court and try them before juries. She advised clients about commercial law and banking law, explaining to them how the law worked and what they could and couldn’t do while staying within the law. That was teaching, she decided.

She worked with people on solving problems, she said. Now she’ll work with students solving problems.

At 50, she has finished her student teaching at South Charleston High School and earned a second bachelor’s degree. She attended graduation ceremonies and wore a cap and gown Dec. 16 in the Charleston Civic Center. “I wasn’t going to. My husband talked me into it.”

She wants a job with Kanawha County schools. She hears there is a shortage of qualified math teachers locally.

“I really like teaching,” she said. “I like the role of teaching. I have notions that I can make it more interesting for people. Maybe everyone has notions of that. You have to have patience with math.”

She and her husband accept that the family income will permanently shrink.

Her daughter, 16 and very academic, understands why her mother might want the different challenges and potential satisfactions of teaching, she said. Her son, 13, wonders why she would make this change. “He just shakes his head at me. Because when I get a paycheck, it won’t be what I used to get.”

When she left BB&T, many of her friends and colleagues told her they wished they had the opportunity to quit what they were doing and do something else they’d always wondered about, Sink said. “Some people thought it was crazy, but most people saw it in that light.”

To contact staff writer Bob Schwarz, use e-mail or call 348- 1249.

(c) 2007 Sunday Gazette – Mail; Charleston, W.V.. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.