Most students and parents know the HAHS librarian as Mrs. McCarthy: the publications teacher, Leo club advisor, senior class advisor, vice president of the Hamburg Area Education Foundation, and past student-council advisor. However, most do not know that she had been advising the student council for nine years and is currently advising the Leo club for the nineteenth year, or that she has been the senior class advisor for about 14 years. Mrs. McCarthy loves her job and it all started a long time ago, back in third grade. Many high school students fluctuate possible career paths multiple times throughout elementary, middle, and high school, yet Mrs. McCarthy was deadset. Her third-grade teacher at St. Paul’s Catholic School in Wisconsin, Mrs. Koebel, inspired her so much that she wanted to become a third-grade teacher just like her. Young Mrs. McCarthy would teach or pretend to be a news broadcaster to her stuffed animals, trees, plants, or any inanimate objects. Quickly her love of school and teaching turned into tutoring. Time flew by and it was time for college. Mrs. McCarthy fell in love with DeSales University and only applied there, but when she went to decide on a major, they did not have elementary education. Hence, she decided to study secondary education and English and communications.
After years of university, Mrs. McCarthy taught one year at Reading Central Catholic and did not like it there because the focus was on sports and not learning. However, at this school, she started yearbook-making with Mrs. Herman, Reading Central Catholic’s yearbook advisor. Deciding to move away from the school she did not like, Mrs. McCarthy started teaching at Hamburg and has been here for the past 28 years. In those 28 years, she has not always been the librarian, nor teaching the same classes. When she first arrived she taught, in what now is Mrs. Steven’s room, 11th and 9th grade English. At this time the newspaper and yearbook were also done by Mrs. McCarthy but not in a class, like the current publications, instead, it was an afterschool activity and done on paper.
Currently, the yearbook is done on a program called Adobe InDesign, on Windows machines, by publications students. When Mrs. McCarthy first started at Hamburg, they would use carbon paper to draw out the yearbook designs twice, one for the printing company and one for the school. Then the printing company would design the yearbook on computers for them. Either way, the yearbook is extremely important to Mrs. McCarthy, along with the newspaper. One of her school-related goals is to “keep making awesome yearbooks and newspapers that reflect the time period.”
At one period of time, Mrs. McCarthy taught both in Mrs. Steven’s room and in the current tech room. Before the tech room used to be in the back room where the color printer is in the library. A few years before moving to the library, Mrs. McCarthy made another move to a storeroom back near the woodshop. This room was used as the TV studio and video classes before another teacher and eventually, Mrs. Eshbach came to take over those electives. In the early 2000s technology was on the rise, so Hamburg wanted to add video classes, however, they did not have anyone to teach them. Mrs. McCarthy has a degree in Communications and was chosen to teach the class. Except when she was in college, there were no video classes, so she had to teach a class on a subject she was not extremely familiar with. Although, she took theatre class.
Eight years ago, Mrs. McCarthy made the move to the library. She was the most fit candidate for the job because in university and over the summer she worked at DeSales in their library, where she earned he elementary education degree. However, university and high school libraries are different. Thus, the Perry Elementary School librarian, Mrs. Koller, would come to the high school for one hour every day to show Mrs. McCarthy the daily tasks.
One of her favorite hobbies is traveling. She has been traveling all her life, starting with her parents in her youth and continuing with international exhibitions. When Mrs. McCarthy was young her parents would take her on at least one big trip a year, which may be the cause of her traveling avocation. Her father is also from Ireland, so Mrs. McCarthy loves to travel there and has been twice. She is also planning another trip to Ireland in 2026. She used to organize international and national school trips for students, but now organizes international trips available to students and families not through the school, like the senior trip to Costa Rica!
Now, Mrs. McCarthy is an experienced HAHS librarian, with a master’s in library science from Kutztown University, who puts lots of extra work into the school, travels constantly, and raises dogs for the blind through the seeing eye. Last year, a dog Mrs. McCarthy was training, Paul, was placed with a blind man in Florida. Now we are waiting on news from Raphi, who was just taken back to the seeing eye.
A while back in HAHS history, around 2008, there was a life skills aide who raised a dog for the seeing eye, which inspired Mrs. McCarthy to do the same. To be able to have the dog in the school, Mrs. McCarthy had to get the approval of the school board. The first dog she trained was Wolfgang in 2016, but he never ended up being placed, and Mrs. McCarthy adopted him. Mrs. McCarthy has trained five dogs, but there are a lot of guidelines. These dogs cannot play tug, give paw, shake, get in the bed, or do lots of other things.
Mrs. McCarthy is a very engaged person, a great teacher, and advisor, but she has some advice for students and parents, or anyone. She considers her greatest achievements to be her degrees, passion for learning, and the work that went into all of that. However, everyone fails and Mrs. McCarhty expresses her biggest failure or regret as “not giving some relationships the amount of time and dedication that they needed.” Her advice to students, adolescents, or anyone willing to listen is “life is too short,” be relaxed and carefree, try new things, find the people that infuse happiness into life, experience more, and jump out of the comfort zone “because that is when those light bulb moments will be made.”
