“I say working in a place with people like this, is a blessed life,” elementary/junior high teacher Jeanne Furr said.  

Jeanne Furr grew up in this area, around Sunnyside. While in school, she enjoyed basketball and her ag classes. She is married to Jim Furr and they have two sons Quade and Chance. Quade is married to Brittany and they have two children, Haidyn and Grayson. Chance is married to Kaycee. Their two kids are Mason and Luke. She is known as Noni to them, and since they live about eight or nine hours away, she spends a lot of time on the phone or face-timing. The Furr family also has a 15-year-old dog named Jesse. Jeanne enjoys watching a good basketball game, reading about fitness and nutrition and listening to lessons or podcasts of people sharing God’s Word. Her husband loves the outdoors and Jeanne enjoys spending time with him, if the weather is right! 

“When the boys were babies, I realized very quickly that I needed an education to support my family so I enrolled at South Plains College and discovered how much I truly loved math and science,” Furr stated. “Because I had a young family and lived in a small town, I thought getting a teaching degree would suit our lifestyle, so math and science became my areas of interest.” 

She also got her kindergarten certificate and that was the one job that opened in the area. Mrs. Furr’s first teaching job was in Amherst. 

“I taught there three years and cried every time my kinder class would go to first grade and that was my first realization that a classroom becomes like a second family,” Furr said. “While I was teaching kinder, I went to school at night and got a Master’s Degree and an Educational Diagnostic Certification.” 

Since her boys were attending school at SE, she wanted to teach here also. 

“I really wanted to teach here and a third-grade position opened up, and part of me was very sad to leave my little friends at Amherst, but the love for my own boys of course made that decision an easy one to make,” Furr mentioned. “I had only taught kindergarten, so when I started teaching third graders, I thought they were the smartest kids I had ever been around!” 

Mrs. Furr has great memories of the 3rd grade plays that took place before Christmas break. 

“I can picture so many students singing their songs or singing back up for another student,” Furr said. “I can remember the look on their face, the hand motions they made, and the confidence that grew in them from the first practice till the day of the performance.” 

Senior Kimberly Cruz remembers a few things from Mrs. Furr’s 3rd grade class, including the Christmas plays.

“I remember the plays so clearly,” Cruz said. “It was fun, enjoyable, and I will always be able to look back on those elementary memories. I am thankful I was able to be in Mrs. Furr’s class.”

Furr knows it is important to have fun in class and enjoys helping students make those memories.

“I crack up at the things student most remember about me,” Furr proclaimed. “Those very things, the I “never forget-things” that happened as we practiced our play, their favorite novel I read to them, the look on their face when they became the mathematicians we worked so hard to become, or most often how they had to help me find my glasses!” 

Mrs. Furr now has a different role at school, where she is in charge of special programs and attending data meetings. 

“I love that I get to work with students and teachers both. I get to work with students of all ages which allows me to get to know so many more students than ever before,” Furr said. “I get to listen to teachers planning, hear about their cool teaching strategies, listen to classroom concerns, and see their targeted instruction growing and nurturing students.” 

She believes that SE has hard working teachers that are willing to do whatever it takes for all of the students. 

“Jesus cherished children and called us all His children and the teachers are following in His footsteps,” Furr declared. “They are creating one big family. They are loving these kids, praying for them, teaching and making sure everyone is learning, and doing everything they can for them to help them grow to become their best selves.”