Melissa Atchison was born in North Central Arkansas in a little town called Batesville. After many moves, the family landed in Plano, Texas in 1974 when Parker Road west of US Highway 75 was a gravel road. A Plano Senior High School graduate of 1978 and a University of North Texas graduate of 1982, Atchison started her working career as an estate administrator with Nations Bank for ten years.
“I would probably still be doing that, but our oldest daughter (Catherine) was born in ’92 and I quit to stay home with her.”
Not long afterwards, in 1994, the family moved to Van Alstyne away from the Metroplex. Two years later in ’96, second daughter Amanda was born.
“When I went back to work, I knew I needed it to be something with the schools because I wanted summers off.” said Atchison. “It was too far to commute to downtown Dallas where there was a trust department, so I just ended up at the library. I was volunteering at the elementary library and decided that would be a good place for me. I thought it would be a fate worse than death to be in a classroom full of kids the whole time. I had helped set up our church library and I thought, ‘this is what I need to do. I need to be in the library.'”
Atchison then went back to school to get her Master of Library Science degree at Texas Women’s University in Denton. She learned there that she had to spend a minimum of two years in the classroom to be a certified school librarian in the State of Texas. Now she was staring at a two year sentence of what she thought was fate worse than death.
“I go to the Methodist church in Van Alstyne and there’s a Wee School there and a lot of the Wee School teachers were certified teachers who had put their careers on hiatus while their kids were little.” said Atchison. “They told me that there were no part-time teaching positions available and they won’t let you job share here and it’s not going to work. I was still going to try so I emailed all three principals at Van Alstyne and the next day I got a response from the middle school saying, ‘you’re never going to believe this, but I have a two year part-time position open next year.’ God opens doors and I walk through them like that when it’s that obvious.”
As it turned out, it was a much better fate than she anticipated and she spent 12 years as a classroom teacher.
“I ended up loving being in the classroom.” said Atchison.
She ended up teaching sixth grade language arts in Van Alstyne for those 12 years through last school year. While she loved teaching, she was patiently waiting the librarian position to open in Van Alstyne. About 10 years ago, most ISDs in Texas decided that they needed just one certified librarian on staff. This limited her opportunities.
In keeping up with mandatory CPET (Center for the Professional Education of Techers) credits, she attended classes in Austin this summer and took some library courses to keep up with her certifications. During that trip to Austin, she attended the Texas Association of School Library Administrators, she realized that now was the time to move forward with her goal of being a library administrator.
“I just decided, it’s time.” said Atchison. “I’ve got to use this MLS (Masters of Library Science). That’s where I wanted to be in the first place.” From that decision, she went online and found that there were positions available all over North Texas including Melissa, Frisco, Princeton, Howe and others.
“I looked at all of the school’s websites and found a little bit about the schools that I didn’t already know.” said Atchison.
She applied at only one school and that being Howe and she did so with only having one day to spare before the job posting closed. With a a mad scramble to get her resume and cover letter all together in time, she turned it in on Monday and received a phone call on Tuesday from Superintendent Kevin Wilson. They set up a meeting for that Thursday and she was offered the position on Friday.
“It’s another God thing and I really do believe that.” said Atchison. “I felt like it was just out of my hands and I was just kind of following the path. I don’t believe in coincidences. I just feel like this is where I’m supposed to be.”
Not knowing former Howe librarian and newly retired Becky Hogenson, Atchison did get to transition for a few days with her. She says that everyone is so friendly and welcoming and has had nothing but positive experiences so far.
The soft-spoken new librarian has not made the complete transition from Van Alstyne to Howe as evident when talking about the Silver Spike. Her husband Jim is a Van Alstyne school board member and she taught most of the kids playing for Van Alstyne.
“It would be really hard to cheer against them. I don’t think I’ve been here long enough for my loyalties to have completely altered that fast.” Atchison joked. “It’s a big week and we have a lot of ties to the school.”
Jim and Melissa Atchison’s daughters both graduated from Van Alstyne High School. Oldest Catherine is now a CPA, working in downtown Dallas at Price Waterhouse Cooper while Amanda is now in college at the University of Arkansas at Fayetville. Many can look at west Parker Road in 2016 and never imagine the gravel road it once was 42 years ago.
Many can also look at the career of an experienced educator and never imagine a fear of fate worse than death. But growth, goals, patience and faith will blossom a slippery gravel road into a solid sturdy base ready for the traffic He has prepared.
