Hackler legacy lives on

"If you're younger than 100, I probably had you in class."

In the Mountain Home community, Evelyn Hackler says, it may be true. It's what she has always said when people ask about her 39 years as an educator.

Evelyn, 81, along with her late husband Robert, saw thousands of students during their teaching careers. From elementary school to high school, Evelyn contributed to English, world history, civics and psychology classes.

Two portrait busts of the couple were recently unveiled at Hackler Intermediate School in Mountain Home. A dedication for the school named in their honor took place in 2010.

The bronze busts, created by renowned local sculptor Ron Moore, were made to honor the Hacklers' legacy in the field of education.

Robert and Evelyn learned of the idea for the portrait busts from Mountain Home superintendent Dr. Lonnie Myers.

"It was quite a surprise to us, just as the naming of the school was to us," Hackler said. "Teachers never expect anything to happen like that."

Unfortunately, Robert passed away on Christmas Day 2013 at the age of 81 — before the busts were unveiled more than a year later.

Long reach in education

Robert began with Mountain Home Public Schools as a math teacher and a school bus driver. He became certified as a counselor in 1965, serving grades one through 12 until 1976. He went into private business and returned to the public schools as assistant high school principal in 1985.

But the scope of his educational reach wasn't limited to Mountain Home.

The Cotter School Board named facilities serving pre-school through first grade "The Hackler Building," honoring Robert's service to that district as superintendent from 1990 until his retirement in 1997.

In 1998, he was appointed to the Arkansas State Board of Education by Gov. Mike Huckabee, serving for more than five years, including one as chairman.

The busts, located in the Hackler Intermediate library today, represent Robert and Evelyn around the time when the two were teaching at the high school. Both graduated from Mountain Home High School in 1950, and that's exactly where they started their careers in 1954, after earning degrees from the University of Arkansas.

Evelyn and Robert were teaching together, sponsoring junior and senior classes, doing the yearbook, helping with the junior and senior plays. At that time, she says, half the high school belonged to Future Teachers of America, which the couple sponsored. Evelyn later became curriculum director for Mountain Home Public Schools.

"We are so fortunate, and I still use the present tense, because it is true," Evelyn said. "It was true years ago and it is still true that we have always felt so fortunate to be a part of this district, and we feel that we taught at the best time, in the best place, with the best people."

"As I say, I hope that we have represented the educators in this district well, because it applies to, really, so many of them," she added.

Students are 'my family'

Every time Evelyn visits with a former student, she knows when they're hers.

"One thing I really wish I would have done was every year to have kept a list of all of the students I have had in my classes," she said, "because it is wonderful when I go into town to have, 'Hi, Mrs. Hackler. How are you?' and we keep up with one another. We're friends now as adults.

"My students are mine. They are my family."

Though education has evolved dynamically through the years, Evelyn says the district and the city of Mountain Home will always be a great place to be for children and families.

"This is a special place in which to live," she said. "Growing up, the freedom in which youngsters had here. One of the things I ask people is, 'Why did you move here?' And I cannot tell you how many people of all different walks of life have said because it's a good place in which to raise a family."