Stacey Traylor teaches third grade at Navarrete Elementary. This longtime teacher has taught second through sixth grade, and has been at Navarette for the past 12 years.

She says she enjoys the third-grade curriculum, especially one of the “big third-grade skills,” learning to multiply. Traylor also likes teaching third grade because “I just like the age because the students are still excited about school,” she says. Traylor is a native Arizonan, originally from Mesa. Her family moved to Cottonwood in northern Arizona when she was 8, and Traylor earned her degrees at Northern Arizona University.

Traylor says when she was in school, her favorite subjects were reading and writing. She still loves to read, and gets book recommendations from her daughter, 21, who she describes as a voracious reader. Traylor also has a 19-year-old son. When her kids were young, Traylor took several years off to be a stay-at-home mom before she returned to teaching.

All subjects are fun to teach, because each has elements that she and her students can get excited about, explains Traylor. But one of her most important lessons is Character Counts. “Every morning we recite the 6 Pillars of Character...I really try to drill that,” she says, because unlike an elementary report card or grade, character “follows you everywhere.”

Traylor was nominated by her student Hazel, who writes, “My teacher is great because she is very kind and she loves to help us.” In small world, full circle news, Traylor says that Hazel’s father was one of her daughter’s favorite high school teachers. When she is not in the classroom, Traylor enjoys playing pickleball and going paddleboarding. She may like the outdoors, but she is not a fan of some desert dwellers.

She recalls a time years ago when a fifth-grade student was cupping something in his hands. She asked what he had, and he told her he had a lizard. But when he opened his hands, the lizard was no longer there. “I screamed and jumped on my desk,” she says. “I don't like lizards!”