Actually, this will be Bradsher’s second attempt at retirement. She tried it the first time in 2004, after serving as assistant principal at the high school for six years.

But when then-principal Greg Hicks announced his intention to move to Orange County Schools after the 2004-05 academic year, Bradsher agreed to come out of retirement for three years — the amount of time required by the state for benefits purposes — to lead the high school to which she had grown so attached.

Schools Supt. Dr. Larry W. Cartner said this week that Bradsher “has had a long and wonderful career in educating children and adults in this region. Her time at Person High School has been especially meaningful for many under her leadership. She is starting a new and well-deserved chapter in her life, and we wish her the absolute best in her retirement.”

Bradsher, a Person County native, began her teaching career at Helena School in 1968 after graduating from East Carolina University. She taught sixth and seventh grades at Helena before returning to college for her masters.

In 1970, she taught seventh and eighth grades history and English in Martin County before moving to Wake County in 1971. She remained there, as a teacher and assistant principal at three different schools, until 1998, when she returned to her home town after marrying David Bradsher, owner of Roxboro Broadcasting Co.

“When I came back to Person County, I had 29 years in,” Bradsher said of her career. “It was my intention to work for a year and then retire, but that didn’t work because I connected to the kids here and found a place where I felt my strengths and talents were needed and could make a difference. The years passed quickly,” she said of her time at PHS.

When then-Schools Supt. Ronnie G. Bugnar asked Bradsher to work as assistant principal and director of high school reform, Bradsher said this week, she jumped at the chance.

She and Hicks worked well together, she said, and when he left, she was concerned about how a new person coming in would handle the reform effort.

“After a lot of thought, I decided that, if real high school reform was going to happen and the faculty was going to respond to it, it had to come from top leadership,” she said. “When Mr. Bugnar offered me the job” as principal, “I made the decision to come out of retirement for three years.”

All she promised at the time, said Bradsher, was the three-year stint.

“I knew when this school year began,” she said Friday, “that this would probably be my last year, although my contract gave me the option to stay longer.”

But, she said, “I took this position mostly with high school reform in mind.”

That reform hasn’t happened like Bradsher had hoped, she now admits, “but I feel like I’ve paved the road for change,” she said.

Bradsher said that she understood that change is difficult in any circumstance.

“There is always uncertainty and fear,” she said, adding that she believed “there has been some misunderstanding on what reform means.”

Some parts of reform have taken place she said, such as establishing Professional Learning Communities and implementing Community Assessment by teachers.

Bradsher said she realized that some people at the high school “thought we had gone off on a tangent, and didn’t connect. We were acting on knowledge of needs” of the students, said Bradsher, but there was a lack of complete understanding by some of the staff and community.”

The statement, at the core of reform, that all high school students should graduate “college ready,” Bradsher explained, does not mean that every single student at Person High should go on to a four-year university.

“College ready means that they can go to the work force better prepared” if the students so choose, she said.

For years, business and industry in North Carolina and the nation have asked for high school students who are better prepared and more highly skilled than in decades past, she said.

She said that part of high school reform meant examining programs at the high school and determining what was working and what wasn’t. By having “an outstanding agreement with Piedmont Community College” Bradsher said, Person High was able to “better prepare our students at many levels of career and technical education” without establishing new programs in-house. This also meant, she said, looking at changing some in-house programs that PCC was better equipped to administer.

Instead of trying to do away with career and technical programs at the high school, Bradsher said, she was able to work with PCC to “expand and enhance the CTE programs.”

She said, as she prepares to hand over the reins, her “challenge to this building and this community is to demand excellence from your school and your children. Don’t just be satisfied with doing what you know you can do. Learning is doing something above that” comfort level “today in order to do something more tomorrow.”

“I think we’ve paved the road” to high school reform, she said, “but we’re afraid to put the car on it because the tar isn’t dry.

“We have to believe in ourselves,” she said. “As teachers, we have power greater than that of the president of the United States. The power of the future is in our hands every day.”

Teachers and students alike must “believe in themselves,” Bradsher said.

She said, as she ends her long career, that she is proud of what she has accomplished and proud, too, of her connection with the High Five Regional Partnership for High School Excellence and her relationship with Van Langston, director of the consortium and champion for high school reform.

She is also proud, she said, that during her tenure at the high school “We were able to stay on top of the gang problem.”

Bradsher said she was “well aware of gang activity and its presence” both at the high school and in the community, “but it hasn’t taken over this building. You do that through knowledge,” she said.

She also takes pride in the opportunities that have opened up for African American students, and particularly black males, Bradsher said.

“We have millions of miles to go,” she said, “but I am pleased to see the support from our African American community.”

Being a “student-centered person,” said Bradsher, made her believe strongly that “this school belongs to our students and they must be invested in it.”

The annual Rocket Fuel Retreat that she began when she first came to Person High makes her proud, Bradsher said, because it gives the students who participate a chance to develop teamwork skills, leadership skills and self-confidence.

After July 1, when her retirement officially begins, Bradsher said she plans to “sleep for the first two weeks” of the month. Then she will clean her house and begin traveling with her husband. They will take more time to enjoy their seven grandchildren, she said, as well as each other.

But, she said, “I am not a stay-at-home person.”

She is a member, she said, of the National Association of Workshop Directors and plans to do some consulting work, particularly in areas devoted to building student confidence, leadership and relationships.

As a former member of the Person Board of County Commissioners, “I believe strongly in community service,” Bradsher added.

She is a member, but has not been as active as she’d like, in the Person Memorial Hospital Auxiliary, the Person County Museum of History and the Friends of the Person County Public Library. Retirement will give her more time for community service, she said.

As she prepares to leave the building she says she has given her heart and soul to, Bradsher expressed appreciation to the parents she has worked with over the past 10 years.

“So many have said their kids’ experience at Person High was positive because I’m here,” Bradsher said, “and that is the gold watch.”