3rd time’s a charm?
Retiring again, Boettler honored for over 5 decades of teaching
Maribeth Boettler of Hennessey is a fourth generation educator and was honored for her 52 years of teaching May 19 on the state Senate floor by Sen. Chuck Hall and Rep. Mike Dobrinski.
She also has the distinction of retiring from teaching three times from three different schools: Kingfisher in 2014, Ringwood in 2018 and now from Hennessey in 2025.
Her great-grandmother was a “founding teacher” at Bethany Peniel College. Her grandmother also taught at the college, then her mother graduated from Bethany Nazarene College and taught at Bethany Public Schools.
It’s no wonder that after her family moved to Texas, Boettler graduated from Southern Nazarene University, then became a teacher.
Or, that her husband, Nick, was a teacher for 40 years.
“His mother also taught for 10 years in one-room schools!” Boettler said.
It’s also no surprise that their daughter, Amara Boettler- Detrick, is a fifth generation educator.
She graduated from Hennessey High School in 1997, went to SNU, has taught 23 years and is now a school principal in Enid.
“My teaching career has been blessed by God,” Boettler wrote. “He is the one that kept calling me back into education. I praise His name for any good I have done and any influence I have had in a child’s life.”
Boettler was named District Teacher of the Year and Masonic Teacher of the Year at both Hennessey and Kingfisher and to the 2017 Hall of Fame by HHS grads.
In 1984, she became the Hennessey Elementary School’s reading specialist. Then two years later she built the school’s first transitional program for those students “who were not quite ready to start the first grade.”
Her schools and teaching years are:
• Aldine, Texas, 1972-74;
• Putnam City, 1975-77;
• Enid, 1977-83; • Hennessey, 1983-04;
• Kingfisher, 2004-2014 (retired);
• Hennessey, 2014-15;
• Ringwood 2015-2018 (retired),
• and after “Mr. Crosswhite (the principal) contacted me that summer and asked if I would come teach at Hennessey again…” then she taught again at the Hennessey Elementary School, 2018-25 (retired).