Nancy Carter is retiring from West Madison Elementary School. (CONTRIBUTED)

MADISON – Nancy Carter is retiring from West Madison Elementary School after a long career in special education.

“I am most proud of my students and their accomplishments. I feel so happy when I see students turn their ‘DISabilities into Abilities,'” Carter said.

At West Madison, Carter taught students in grades K-4 with learning disabilities, other health impairment, autism and who are developmentally delayed. Previously, she taught at Bossier Evaluation Center in Bossier City, La. as individual education planner for 28 schools in the Bossier Parish School System. She also taught at Bossier School for Exceptional Children.

For the teacher who replaces her, she recommends “to always keep your students’ best interest your number one priority. Encourage students to always do their best.”

From her years in schools, Carter will always remember her high school band director. “He always had ‘high expectations’ of our band, and he led us to acquire high marks in all our competitions, because he taught us how to work as a group and to have high expectations of ourselves,” she said.

Carter earned a bachelor’s degree in special education at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg and a master’s degree at Louisiana Technical University in Ruston.

Her husband Dean Carter works as an engineer for Qinetiq Engineering. Her sons are Will Carruth, an engineer with the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers in Vicksburg , Miss., and Jim Carruth, an engineer with the U.S. Navy Surface Warfare Center in Panama City Beach, Fla.

During retirement, Nancy Carter will “spend more time with my husband and my two sons and their wives. I plan to focus more on my hobbies, which include quilting, fishing, genealogy, gardening and playing musical instruments. I hope to take some tours around the United States and visit places that I’ve never been.”