Long-time counselor bidding farewell to Demopolis High
After nearly three decades in the system, Debbie Nichols plans to walk out of Demopolis High School for the final time next week.
The counselor at Demopolis High School since 1997, Nichols had every intention of retiring effective July 1 until those plans changed just last week.
“I had my retirement set up, had all my paperwork turned in. My effective date was July 1. Moving to Birmingham area, looking for a house. And last Wednesday night, Dr. (Wayne) Vickers called me and asked me would I consider not retiring,” Nichols said of a phone call she received from the former Demopolis and current Alabaster City Schools Superintendent. “It took me by surprise. Again, I felt like God was opening a door. I thought I was going in one direction and I just felt like He was opening that door again. Because my effective date of retirement had not arrived yet, I am able to still pull my application. I will be the senior counselor and working with (Pam Vickers). I’ll have some other duties.”
Nichols, who had planned to move to the Birmingham area to be near one of her sons, will take over counseling duties at Thompson High School where Vickers is heading into his second year atop the system.
“I’m leaving here with mixed emotions, but I had planned on leaving anyway and going on. I really kind of felt like retirement was my only thing. I wanted to work part-time though and I knew I wanted to work with young people still. I wasn’t ready to just go sit at home,” Nichols said. “Once you get involved in the lives of young people, it’s just a part of your heart that you enjoy and you long for. I was really hoping to stay a part of something like that for a while anyway. It is just amazing how you sit back sometimes and watch the Lord put everything into place and into plan. The Lord is just working and I’m just trying to hold on.”
Nichols, who has also worked at Westside Elementary School and Demopolis Middle School, has seen her latest professional opportunity materialize in much the same unexpected manner her last one did in 1997 when Dr. Wesley Hill informed her she would be taking over counseling duties at Demopolis High School.
“When God opens a door, you don’t question it. You go on,” Nichols said of what she experienced 17 years ago as she entered Demopolis High. “When I came, I had just a wonderful support system here then. (DHS teachers) were just really good to take me under their wing with everything.”
As she readies to box up the myriad of student pictures, articles and newspaper clippings that line the walls inside and outside her office and turns her attention toward the next phase of her life, Nichols said it is her co-workers and the hundreds of students she has served over the years who will fill her mind and continue to fill her heart in the days and months to come.
“Kids know that you care and that you will have a listening ear. The students have meant the most to me and the people I’ve worked with. I’ve worked with some really wonderful people through the years,” Nichols said. “I feel like that’s why I’ve been placed here. I’ve been placed in this position, of course, for the students.”