“Just continue to show up,” advised Holly Slay. “Even when you don’t feel your best, just continue to show up. Thinking back, it’s not just the big moments in life that stick out to me. It’s those little moments where people were there for me, were there to support me, and were there to back me up. Just continue to show up and be consistent and support others. That’s what builds the community that we have.”
Holly Slay knows how important it is to show up and be there for others, no matter how small the reason may seem. She has always been surrounded by people who are willing to show up and offer her support in everything she does.
A lot of support she has received over the years comes from her family. It is thanks to spending time with her family that she was first introduced to Quitman when she was younger, and she made some great memories with them over the years.
“I’m from Wayne County. I grew up there and graduated from there. When I was younger, I would come to Quitman with my nanny when she would come help her friends,” Holly reminisced. “There used to be an old dent can food store where Chefski’s is, so I would come work with her on Saturdays sometimes. One of my favorite memories was coming and helping her at that store. We would always call in a pizza at Papa’s Pizza, and that was the best pizza.”
By the time she graduated from high school, she knew exactly what she wanted to do as a career. She was inspired to teach by both her mom and her own positive experience in elementary school.
“I’ve just always wanted to be a teacher since day one in kindergarten,” explained Holly. “My mom is an assistant. She actually started when I started kindergarten, so she’s been a kindergarten assistant for 30 years in Wayne County at this point. There was a very brief time, like one semester, that I was going to do pre-pharmacy, and I just knew I couldn’t do it. I just knew that working with kids was my thing. I wanted to teach and help others. Education was what I was meant to do, and God let me go that way. I haven’t turned back since then. When I was younger, I babysat all the time, and while I was at Southern, I worked at a daycare over there. Working with kids is all I’ve ever known, and I honestly don’t know what else I would do in life. I chose to teach elementary because they’re still innocent, and everything is still magical and new to them. Just seeing that light bulb go off all the time when they get something gets you so excited. That’s when you know you’re making the biggest impact on their education. I want kids to have the love that I have for education, so I decided to go where it starts. I had an awesome kindergarten teacher, and I had an awesome fifth grade teacher that actually followed me to eighth grade and then became my high school counselor. Now, she’s the deputy superintendent in Wayne County. My elementary years were just so magical. In Wayne County, the elementary school was K-4, so when you were there, it was like in Matilda; it was the best school where the students didn’t want to leave. The teachers I had just fostered a love for education in me, and I wanted to do that for others.”
It was when she graduated from Southern that she first came to Quitman to start her career in education. Through her job, she actually met the love of her life and started a family of her own.
“The way I ended up coming to Quitman was when I was attending Southern for my bachelor's degree, I only signed up for two tables at the USM recruitment fair,” remembered Holly. “I signed up at the Wayne County table, and then I signed up at the Quitman table since I would come to Quitman for eye appointments with Dr. Cochran. Quitman ended up calling me. It was James Kelly at the upper elementary, so I ended up coming here then. That was one of the best decisions I ever made. I graduated from Southern and came straight here. Moving from Hattiesburg to Quitman was a very big adjustment because everything here closes by 8:00 versus everything being open all night in Hattiesburg. It was a really nice adjustment going from big city to small town. Then, that’s actually how I ended up meeting Dylan. My first job was at the upper elementary, and on my very first day of work, Ms. Kathy came running into the copy room. She said that she just did the birthdays and that her son and I were close in age and asked if I had a boyfriend. She introduced me to Dylan, and it’s been magical ever since. I lived in a little apartment that Ms. Faye Brownlee owns right next to BJ’s Tires for my first two years here.”
Although she has left to teach in other school districts for short periods of time, she loves Quitman and has always come back. She only left because it was more beneficial when she first started to grow her family.
“I did leave Quitman to go teach in Wayne County, and I regretted it. I cried as I left the upper. I’ll tell anybody and everybody that Quitman is a hidden gem. You don’t realize how special this place is until you walk away from it. Just the support from the community and how close everybody is is really nice. I’m not from here, but I feel like I’ve been adopted pretty well here. It’s just a nice feeling to be loved and appreciated here and something I enjoy and love,” proclaimed Holly. “I went back two times, but in my defense, it was whenever I was planning on having kids. I went to a doctor in Laurel, so Wayne County was closer to my doctor. I came back to Quitman every time. Third time’s the charm. I’ve been here ever since.”
Eventually, she decided to further her degree. By the time she graduated again, Covid hit. That ended up working in her favor, however, when it came to her family.
“I went to William Carey online, and I got my master’s degree in elementary. I had looked and compared masters versus specialists for educational leadership, and they were essentially the same,” expressed Holly. “I decided to go ahead and do my specialist in educational leadership. I graduated with it in May of 2020, so I didn’t get to walk or anything because of Covid. Everything ended up working out because I had Sawyer, my first child, in January of 2020, and the first week I was supposed to go back to work is when the governor shut down the schools. I was home with my son until August, which was a blessing.”
Then, she came back to Quitman again to teach.
“Then, I came back to Quitman and was teaching fifth grade,” informed Holly. “At Quitman, I’ve taught third grade and fifth grade, and I’m the assistant principal at the lower elementary now. I’ve mainly taught math. I taught third grade reading for two years, but in all, I’ve taught third through sixth grade math.”
She’s officially been in education 12 years now, and out of everything that she has taught, she was surprised to find that her favorite thing to teach wasn’t what she expected.
“My favorite thing to teach was third grade reading, even though it’s state tested,” declared Holly. “I just happened to luck out when I went to the upper my very first year teaching because they were departmentalized, so I only taught math. I got away with that until 2023 when Kristen Schrimpshire told me she wanted me to teach reading. I told her I wasn’t a reading teacher and was scared to death to teach reading, but she insisted that she really wanted me to give it a try because it would open up more opportunities for me and she didn’t want me to be stuck in just one content area. I told her that I would try but that I really wasn’t a reading teacher. I got into it and didn’t really feel like I was teaching. I felt like the kids and I were just doing a lot of talking, but Schrimpshire told me that I was teaching while we were having those conversations. She said I was making them think, and that’s part of it.”
It may have originally been out of her comfort zone, but she discovered a way to help the kids learn through reading, and she actually preferred the flexibility of reading compared to teaching math.
“A lot of kids at Quitman aren’t really able to get out and go other places a lot, so I liked trying to build their background knowledge,” explained Holly. “I’d pull up different things on the smart board for us to talk about. We might have a story on the mountains, so I would pull up some pictures of the mountains for us to talk about. We’d talk about what happens in the mountains and the different things you might see, and then we would go into our story. They could relate more to it then because they had seen it and we talked about it. I liked opening the doors of their mind to different things they can see or do in life. On one of the lessons, we would read about the ocean. I know most of them have watched Finding Nemo, so I would bring that up. Then, my husband and I have gone on a charter fishing trip, so I brought up pictures of that and let them see how the water changed throughout our trip. It would blow their minds, but they were able to see it and have a conversation about it. Then, as we’re reading the book, they would see what we were talking about. It helped form those little aha moments. We still had the state test that we had to go by, so we were still teaching the strategies and stuff like that. I was hoping by doing all the other stuff that it was helping foster that love for reading and learning. I just found a love for teaching reading. With math, everything is black and white, and there’s just one answer. It’s different with reading.”
This year, she has taken on a new role as the assistant principal at Quitman Lower Elementary. She loves her job and has adjusted well to the new responsibilities she has.
“I enjoy being the assistant principal. There’s plenty that I still need to learn. Ms. Allen is very good at her job, and I have plenty that I can learn from her,” expressed Holly. “I’ve enjoyed the position and didn’t realize how humbling being an assistant principal was. Nobody ever thinks about that. At our school, I’m supposed to handle more of the discipline and stuff like that. I fill in where needed. When I say it’s humbling, it’s like I’m the glue at the school and just go wherever I’m needed. One of my favorite things to help out with is car rider duty. I love going out there and doing car rider duty. I get to see parents and talk to and interact with them. I get to hang out with the kids and see them. I like doing bus duty in the evenings because I get to see some of my babies from the upper and talk to them in the busses. I enjoy that I get to go in and help teach some of the classes. I’ve been going and helping with math because that’s something I feel comfortable with right now at the lower level. In kindergarten and first grade, they’re still learning phonics, so I’ve been watching and learning to make sure I don’t mess anything up with that. In third grade, it focused more on comprehension, so I was a little more comfortable with reading there. I’m confident with math because that doesn’t change.”
Her accomplishments and dedication in education have been recognized.
“I was Curriculum Associates Extraordinary Educator last year,” stated Holly. “That’s the curriculum that we use. There were only four people in Mississippi who received that award. I was going to get the chance to go to Boston last summer, but I had just had my third son, so I didn’t get to go. It was really neat. We had different experiences throughout. It was a Zoom type thing.”
Although she stays busy with her job, there are other things that she enjoys doing, particularly spending as much time as possible with her family.
“I love to read. That’s one of my biggest hobbies,” said Holly. “I do like to bake. I have three boys, so my main hobby is just following them around. We have soccer during the fall and baseball during the spring, so we don’t have much off time. I just like spending time with my family.”
Of course, they enjoy taking a little vacation occasionally. She has made memories with her family that she will never forget on some of their excursions.
“We’ll go to the mountains sometimes, and when we go to the mountains, we go to see the mountains,” declared Holly. “My boys don’t know what Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg are. We play in the mountains. Their favorite place is Cade’s Cove. They don’t have to be in car seats. We park, and they get out and run and play. We are outside in nature. One school year ago, we were walking back to that Elijah Wood cabin that’s like half a mile back. We were on the trail, and a humongous black bear came out in front of us. I was pregnant with Finn and was scared to death. It was horrible. That’s the biggest bear I’ve ever seen in my life. It just looked at us and kept walking. Our boys were so excited and saying, ‘Oh, a bear!’ We like to do stuff like that to make memories. We don’t just go and do all the touristy stuff.”
No matter what, she does her best each day to make a positive impact on the lives of countless children. She will continue to encourage those around her and bring joy to everyone she sees each day.
