Kylee Fone

This year, Rolla High School welcomed many new teachers to the district including art teacher Bennett Zink and math teacher Frannie Lowrey. Following graduation from William Woods University, Zink taught at Glendale High School in Springfield. After five years, Zink transferred to Rolla and is now teaching alongside his brother, science teacher Nick Zink. After graduating from Missouri State University, Lowrey taught at Waynesville High School where she taught for three years.
Lowrey’s experience transferring to a new district was not as difficult as it might seem.
“The [RHS] admin are super nice…and supportive, and everybody gets along, like, from a teacher side which is really nice because it makes me like coming to work,” Lowrey said.
Lowrey also gives credit to English teacher Patrick Brooks for helping her with a smooth transition to the district.
“When Mr. Brooks left Waynesville, they needed someone to take over speech and debate and so I was helping him with that. And then I would see Mr. Brooks at all of the tournaments and he convinced me to come to Rolla because it was better,” Lowrey said.
Lowrey now volunteers her time to assist the Rolla speech and debate team. For Zink, it was a natural fit to take over Art Club which is held on Wednesdays after school.
“I usually have a prompt for them to do [at club meetings], or like a project, it depends on the time of the year, but it could be a competition or just like a holiday-based project. Or students can just work on their own art project or stuff from my class,” Zink said.
Zink also teaches all of the 2-D art classes. He was inspired to pursue art education because of an influential teacher he had in high school. Now firmly settled in his teaching role at RHS, Zink is also continuing his own education.
“I’d like to teach college eventually, so I’m getting my masters right now,” Zink said.
The shift from Glendale to Rolla offered Zink a change of scenery.
“[There are] definitely a lot more country kids…And I showed up for open house on the first day and there were like fifty mullets in the hallway…Big difference,” says Zink.
After getting acquainted with a new group of people, he says the relationships with students are still definitely the best part of teaching.
“I think meeting a whole new set of kids [created nerves] because you kind of get used to, you know, the ones at your old school,” Zink said. “But yeah, it’s been great.”