TORRINGTON – A Goshen County teacher is set to retire after years of devotion to her students and the art of learning.

As an individual who grew up in many different locations throughout her life, Lincoln Elementary second-grade teacher Cindy Gulisano has drawn knowledge from many sources. Born in Mitchell, Neb., Gulisano said the family moved often, following her father as he was transferred around in his job for Great Western Sugar. 

From Mitchell, the family spent some time in Billings, Mont., then Ohio and finally to Brighton, Colo.

“It’s interesting, because I was ten years younger than my siblings, so I had not been to school, but I had always had this love of wanting to be a teacher. I always wanted to since I can remember, like four years old I remember pretending and wanting to be a teacher,” Gulisano said. “My mom taught Sunday School and I would watch her do that and get things ready, and I just – I don’t know, there was something about that.”

Gulisano was an early reader. Watching her mother, and seeing what her siblings were doing in school, helped to influence Gulisano’s decisions. As she got older, Gulisano still knew she wanted to be a teacher, but also that she wanted to be the opposite of all of the teachers she didn’t think were as nice to kids as they should be.

Holding a Master’s Degree in Elementary Math Education, Gulisano is also Nationally Board Certified in Literacy, and worked as a facilitator for 12 years, mentoring other teachers and promoting staff development and professional growth.

Before starting work at Lincoln Elementary, Gulisano worked at Lingle Ft. Laramie Elementary for 17 years.

Gulisano was recognized as Wyoming’s Teacher of the Year in 2001. She travelled to Washington D.C. and met with other Teachers of the Year nationwide. Another vivid memory of the year was teaching children about the devastating World Trade Center attacks.

“I was teaching fifth grade and my kids, because it was Lingle, most of the kids rode the bus, and they’d already gotten on the bus when things had happened, so they showed up at school and knew nothing,” Gulisano said. “It was up to me to explain and talk to them about what was happening in the world without scaring them, without over-dramatizing it, without making them have any prejudice…that this was a select group of really terrible people.” 

Another experience that Gulisano remembers is having kids stay overnight at the school to study the stars.

“It was just kind of fun to sleep at school and just get a taste of what they were like not just in the classroom, but as little kids,” Gulisano said.

As a Physical Education teacher, Gulisano’s husband Dick recently retired as well. He has coached at every school in Goshen County throughout his career.

Having both parents active as teachers, Gulisano said their kids, David, Chad, Kelli and Jeff, were able to have their parents active in their lives in and out of the classroom.

“When our kids were young, the beauty of being a teacher is you do have time in the summer that you can spend with them. What the other side of that is, if you look at most committees like baseball, the team moms or the people that run the concession stand, or if you look at people that run the swim team, all those summer programs, probably 80% of them are run by teachers,” Gulisano said. “Because we have the summer, but we want to spend time with our children and want them to be involved.”

Balancing home and work were never an issue for the Gulisano’s, but now that Dick is retired, she said he has had to become accustomed to her long hours that “it takes to be a good teacher.

“I think it’s important to always, if you’re going to be a teacher, you have to be a learner,” she said 

During Gulisano’s time teaching at L-FL she implemented a

“Every Friday afternoon my students participated in the micro-society and we had a newspaper. We had a bank, we paid taxes and learned how to keep a checking account, they wrote checks and balanced their checkbook,” Gulisano said. “We had someone who did nails so we had a commerce, we had created post-cards, wrote letters, we had a post office.”

During their time in the micro-society the kids were able to have a look at the adult world and learn how society operated. 

The kids were able to hold a job through the first semester and a new one the second semester including elections for the Mayor.

Upon retirement, Cindy Gulisano will have taught for 34 years. The couple have grandchildren that live in Wyoming, Colorado and Wisconsin, so the plan is to have more time after retirement to spend with them. 

Gulisano said they normally travel to Wisconsin to spend Thanksgiving with their family there every year. Following retirement, they are going to spend a little time in the south and get up to Wisconsin for the upcoming Thanksgiving. 

The two big dreams the Gulisano’s have for post-retirement is to spend time with their grandchildren and to travel the world together.