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A Retirement Celebration!
Congratulations to our VBCPS retirees, 216 in all, who celebrated their retirement at a gala dinner held at the Virginia Beach Convention Center in June. The event was hosted by the Department of Human Resources. You may have missed seeing some of these familiar faces in schools and offices since then, especially those whose tenure stretched over several decades. As is typical, our retirees represented a cross section of employees, ranging from teachers, bus drivers, custodians, cafeteria workers and administrators to specialists, coordinators, supervisors and managers, technicians and craftsmen, associates and assistants.

Believe it or not, these 216 employees collectively served the school division a total of 5,123 years, with an average tenure of 23.7 years for each retiree. Breaking out some of the milestones of service, it looks like this: 74 employees had up to 20 years of service with VBCPS; 75 had from 21 to 30 years; 54 had from 31 to 40 years; and six people had over 40 years. That is amazing!

We wish all of our retirees well and offer them a resounding “thank you” for their many years of service at a host of jobs throughout the division. A special nod of appreciation goes to those retirees who served the longest with VBCPS as they made a difference for hundreds, even thousands, of children. Retirees with 40 or more years of service include:

•	Barbara McMillan, guidance department chairman, Open Campus, 48 years
•	Malveen Lewis, bus driver, Office of Transportation Services, 42 years. At 82-years-old, Lewis was also the oldest retiree.
•	Ann S. Harrison, guidance department chair, Salem Middle School, 41 years
•	Lorriane Bennett, Latin teacher, Cox High School, 41 years
•	Elizabeth “Betsy” Taylor, assistant superintendent, Department of School Administration, 41 years
•	David Walker, driver education teacher, Green Run High School, 41 years
•	Georgia Christie, coordinator, social studies, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, 40 years
•	Lizzie “Liz” Warren, principal, College Park Elementary, 40 years

Eight retirees were especially honored for their 40 or more years of service. Pictured left to right are Superintendent Jim Merrill, 48-year veteran Barbara McMillan; 42-year veteran Malveen Lewis; 41-year veteran Betsy Taylor; 41-year veteran Lorraine Bennett; 40-year veteran Georgia Christie; and School Board member Em Davis.

The theme of the evening’s festivities was Retirement…A New Chapter.

Retirees and guests enjoyed a pre-dinner reception!