Vicky Dickhut

Vicky Dickhut started at Eastside Elementary School when her children were there.Now that her children are off at college, she's at Eastside again as the school secretary.

A Rogers High School graduate, Dickhut's career started in banking.She worked in bookkeeping and as a secretary at Fist National Bank in downtown Rogers, before it became Arvest.

She took the position only days after she graduated from high school because she wasn't sure what she wanted to do, but she stayed at the bank for 12 years.She left to stay home with her children.

Her only secretarial training came during her years at the high school, but the typing and shorthand served her well during the first part of her career.

When her youngest son started kindergarten, she went to work at Eastside as an aide.She had responsibilities in several different areas including the library, the office and as an aide in a reading program.

She moved to the REACH office as a secretary and then to the high school.At the high school she used her banking background as the person in charge of activity accounts, as well as a secretary.

"I loved that age kids, but I was ready for a change," she said.She moved back to Eastside three years ago.

Although her family is well established in Rogers now, she remembers a difficult adjustment when her father moved them from Seattle to a farm in Garfield when she was 12.

"Until that time I thought all pigs were pink," she said.As her father's farm grew she found "a totally different world."Her parents still live on the farm, but Dickhut and her husband now live in Rogers.

They enjoy hiking and canoeing and their two miniature dachshunds.Her two children are away at college, but she has four generations of extended family in Rogers.

"There's no reason to leave," she said.

Only one of her 13 classroom teachers came from other Rogers schools and no one, except Maxey and the school's secretary, Vicky Dickhut, transferred from their sister school -- Eastside.