Originally published by The River City Review inside the West Sacramento News-Ledger on Sept. 27, 2000

When you hear the word “chemistry” what do you think of? Most people would say, “Explosions, smoke, and chemicals.” Ms. Tuttle and the other people and teachers that work with chemistry experience these things often, but in a controlled environment. Every Friday in her classes they have a demonstration with fire and/or explosions.

Ms. Tuttle is a new biology and chemistry teacher here at River City High School. She chose to teach chemistry because she used to work in a lab at The Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia, and she liked it when her employers let her teach the future employees about chemistry and how it works.

Asked why she chose to work here, she said that she applied at many other schools and this one’s schedule was the best. She teaches biology because after she decided to work here they assigned her to teach it as well as chemistry. She also said that she loves the students here and loves to teach them.

In her spare time Ms. Tuttle goes rock climbing and plays with her 11-year-old daughter. She said, “That should be the other way around,” referring to rock climbing and playing with her daughter. They climb together. They like it because it is exciting and dangerous.

Asked if she could change her career to anything in the world she simply said, “I wouldn’t. I’ve worked in a lot of different careers, but teaching is my favorite.” Teaching is what she likes to do and she would not trade it for anything else.

No matter if she is out rock climbing, playing with her daughter (in reverse order, of course), or if she’s teaching biology or chemistry, she tries to do her best even if it is in backward order!

Editor’s Note: The Review is a high school publication at River City High School in West Sacramento, Calif., for which Daniel Wilson wrote and edited between 2000-2004. The stories published in this category appear in their original form with the only corrections being removal of hyphens for line breaks and the fixing of typos.