Not only is the world her oyster, it also is her classroom.

Tuesday, July 25, 2000

Not only is the world her oyster, it also is her classroom.

Linda Nemitz, daughter of Wayne and Sally Nemitz of Austin, finds opportunity with the spin of a globe.

Colombia, Egypt, Italy and Japan … been there, done that.

No self-contained classroom setting, the same-old, same-old in education for her.

Give her the world or give her the death of her passion for teaching.

Nemitz is the only teacher in her family tree. She was the quintessential teacher’s pet, a classroom helper who thoroughly enjoyed both being in school and being a teacher’s helper in school.

"What I remember is that I had some very good elementary teachers," she said. "I think they must have done something for me that stayed with me. It was all a positive experience when I was young – my home life and my education."

Nemitz has two brothers and two sisters and graduated from Fort Dodge (Iowa) High School, where her parents lived at the time and when her father worked there for Hormel Foods Corp.

She went to Iowa Central Community College in Fort Dodge and transferred to the University of Northern Iowa, where she earned a bachelor’s of arts degree in 1978. Her major was elementary education with an emphasis in remedial reading.

Before Anderson could join the ranks of teachers and see the world, she saw Audubon, Iowa, where she was a half-day kindergarten and half-day remedial reading teacher. The next year, her sophomore year as a teacher, she taught the same class and course at tiny Gray, Iowa.

Then came a two-year stint at Badger, Iowa, near Fort Dodge.

After five years of teaching and three changes in employers, she was tempted by a reported teaching shortage in San Antonio, Texas.

However, she reconsidered and instead attended an international recruiting fair for educators held at UNI in Cedar Falls, Iowa.

At this point in telling her story, Nemitz observed she is the granddaughter of Fayette and Etta Sherman, a name well-known to Austinites.

Her grandfather, Sherman, is deceased, but grandmother, Etta, now 99, lives with her parents.

Her grandparents traveled the world and each time they returned they brought back special souvenirs from foreign countries for their granddaughter, Linda.

That fueled her interest in exotic locales.

Also, she visited Spain during her senior year in high school and basked in the experience of immersing herself in another culture.

That also fueled her interest for stretching her boundaries. As she recalls it, "I had the passion."

Thus, she accepted an offer to go to Colombia in 1985 and teach at a private American school, called Colego Karl C. Parish, at Barranguilla.