Long-time Sisters educator retires

Barbara Turner, of Little Frog Learning Center, moved to Sisters in 1985 with her husband and children from McMinnville. She will be retiring this winter after a 44-year career in education and 30 years serving the Sisters community.

Barbara's first job in the community was at Sisters Preschool, where she worked for five years. While teaching at Sisters Preschool she would walk her children down to the old library behind the Sisters Area Chamber of Commerce Visitors Center for story time with Peg Bermel. Billie Franks worked as an assistant for Barbara during this time. She also taught gymnastics at the gymnastics club at Sisters Middle School and ran the gymnastics camp during the summer which included bowling lessons and swimming at Conklin's Bed & Breakfast.

This led to her work with SOAR when that program, which evolved into Sisters Park & Recreation District (SPRD), launched.

"I was always drawn to working with children, "Turner said. "I started in high school taking child development classes."

She and her family were drawn to the quiet life of Sisters, the people, and the community - and they put down roots.

Barbara worked at the Black Butte Camp Sherman School as a teacher's assistant to the kindergarten through second-grade classrooms. She was one of the first of three staff at SOAR in the mid-1990s working in the after-school program, where she remained until 2007. Barbara has albums of photos from these years documenting the early days of SOAR/SPRD and her Black Butte Camp Sherman years, showing the hundreds of children she worked with and cared for.

She then began working for the Charter School Academy of Arts in Sisters and began working with Evelyn Brush at A Joyful Noise as a kindergarten and after-school teacher. In 2012, she bought the business from Brush and opened her own business: Little Frog Learning Center, becoming a full-time preschool teacher and director.

In her time at Little Frog Learning Center, Turner showed her continued dedication to the field of early childhood education. She took over 600 hours of training, as well as education-related college courses. She completed Oregon's Quality Rating Improvement System (QRIS) process and was recognized as a program of quality, becoming one of the top-ranked preschool centers in the state.

Passionate about early childhood education and seeing the need in the community, Turner helped advocate for adding a preschool program to SPRD.

She worked 50-60 hours during the week with the children, her true passion, and spent her weekends tracking business records, shopping for supplies, food, prepping meals, cleaning, and landscaping.

After her many years of hard work, she is looking forward to stepping back to spend time with family, friends, and traveling.

Barbara isn't quite done yet. Her love of working with children lives on. She will continue her work part-time with Little Frogs on the Go.

She will be available to families who need help with part-time childcare, transportation to soccer or dance, or who need a night on the town. For more information, contact her at 541-419-2314 or [email protected]

Becky Mallon of the new Mountain Montessori program will be filling the space at the former Little Frog Learning Center. For more information call 541-549-0000 or visit www.mountainmontessorisisters.com.