‘It is time’: DeHart retires from teaching after 55 years in the classroom

When Kay Landry DeHart began teaching, the year was 1967, and Lyndon B. Johnson was the president of the United States, the Vietnam War was taking place, and the price of gas was 33 cents a gallon. This year, 2022, DeHart has decided to retire from teaching, which brings an end to 55 years in education.
Her career in education stretched over 10 presidents, along with the creation of color TV, computers, BitCoins, the Internet and many other historical events that are too numerous to name.
Over the last 55 years, she has taught at only three schools in Vermilion Parish. She began teaching at Mt. Carmel and then moved to Maltrait Elementary. She spent her final 33 years at J.H. Williams Middle School.
At JHW, she taught ELA (English, Literature and the Arts) to seventh- and eighth-graders. She spent the final 20 years in the same classroom at J.H. Williams Middle School.
At the age of 77, DeHart slowly began seeing that education was taking a different path, and she did not enjoy it as much as she did 20 or 30 years ago. Technology moved into the classroom, and DeHart adjusted and adapted. Then came two years of teaching with COVID, and that would be the turning point that made it easy for her to walk away from her passion.
Walking away from her passion also means walking away from the people she loves, who keep her going each day. Her students are what got her out of bed each morning.
“I love my students,” she said. “They were my kids. So I felt I had to be there for them.”
Her students helped her get through a callous time in her life. In 2006, she lost her husband, Richard. She thought about retiring back then, but she knew it would be a rough situation to deal with if she did. So instead, she continued to teach and walked into her classroom, knowing her students needed her. But what she did not realize at the time was that she needed her students more.
“Sixteen years ago, my students helped me get through the loss of my husband,” DeHart said. “They did not understand at the time, and they thought I was helping them. But they were helping me. They needed love, and I needed love. These teens were getting me through grief.”
Now she is at a good place in her life, and she is ready to move on and begin a new chapter. She is not exactly sure what that chapter will be. She would love to travel. She has traveled to Washington D.C. for 18 years with students from J.H. Williams Middle School. She and the students also traveled to New York City for five years.
Last week, after two surprise retirement parties, DeHart said it was time to walk away from a career that has brought fulfillment to her for more than five decades. Unfortunately, few believed her when she told her assistant principal, Ryan Abshire, that she would retire. He responded, “You’ve been saying that for years. You are not going to retire.”
But this time, it was for real.
“I need to rest at a point in my life,” DeHart said. “I am not sure what I will do, but I have a lot of catching up to do around the house. I want to travel.”
DeHart graduated from Mt. Carmel in 1962 and later graduated with a degree in education from what was then USL. She raised three sons and lived in Abbeville most of her life except for when she lived in Hawaii and Georgia when her husband was in the military.
A former student of hers made her a sign that sums up DeHart’s career statistics. She presented it to her at one of her retirement parties.
On the sign, it read:
• Three schools: Mt Carmel, Matrait and J.H. Wiliams Middle School
• 9,900 days spent making a difference
• 79,200 hours helping shape young minds
• So many lives touched. One unforgettable teacher.
• Kay DeHart 1967 to 2022.
“I am going to miss it, but it is time. I am 77 years old,” DeHart said.