RICHMOND, Va. -- For the past 45 years, students who walked the grounds of Richmond's Trinity Episcopal School likely would have crossed paths with chemistry teacher Pauline Crowling.
The school celebrated that milestone on Wednesday in conjunction with her 80th birthday.
"She has an infectious, natural curiosity for everything. Just an intellectual curiosity that diffuses out to the world," Head of School Rob Short said of Crowling, who added he has been at the school for 34 years and was initially hired as a science teacher by her. "She really was a great mentor to me as a young teacher. And I think as I saw that over 40 years or so of her life in science. I think that's my favorite piece. Unconditionally positive, helpful, full of wisdom. She's just a very generous human being and fun to be around every day."
Crowling started her career in science as a chemist for Texaco and stepped away to raise a family.
She said her career at Trinity began in 1978 with a chance encounter with a friend who said they needed substitute teachers because of a flu epidemic.
That eventually turned into a full-time job as their chemistry teacher.
Crowling and the Trinity Battle of the Brains team will compete in this season's episode that airs on January 20, 2024.
"I love kids, I love the teenagers, and I love chemistry," Crowling, who has seen the school grow and technology in the classroom change, said. "Oh, my God computers. And I went through college with a slide rule. The kids, though, kids are the same. And the kids that go here are really, really nice people. They really are. It's a great place to teach."
Several of those kids, now adults, returned to Trinity to celebrate Crowling (some were already there as Crowling taught several current teachers at Trinity).
"She was phenomenal. I mean, I loved going into her class every single day. It was a huge bright spot in my high school years," Rebecca Muminovic, class of 1993, said. "She just lights up a room, she's just wonderful, and she loves her students. I have children here now and she has taught them and they love her as well."
"She was really pivotal in my teen years. She was a tremendous, positive female role model for me. I ended up becoming a physician. She helped really foster that love of science and in chemistry, too, which is a field -- physics, chemistry -- you don't, at least back in the day, you didn't often see women in."
While she stopped teaching full-time five years ago, she fills other roles at the school, substitute teaches, and has been the coach of the school's "Battle of the Brains" (which airs on CBS 6) team for 14 years. The team made the semifinals last year.
"As a student, it's always nice to see her around just because she is very she's a very nice person. We'll always say hi in the hallways and then we just sometimes get into discussions about, specifically Battle the Brains -- that's what we talk most, but then sometimes also just general goings on. And it's always nice to talk to her," Hayden Veech, Trinity junior and Battle of the Brains team member, said.
Crowling said she thought she has taught around 10,000 kids during her time at the school and her aim was always to foster a basic knowledge of chemistry in them and an enthusiasm for learning.
"I encouraged them. No matter what kind of grade state they got, I never cut them down. I always praised them and encouraged them to keep going," said Crowling.
And keep going is exactly what Crowling said she intends to do at Trinity.
"There's no reason why I need to stop."
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