Idaho Teacher’s 40-Year Legacy Lives On Through Former Students Now Teaching at Midvale Elementary
Midvale Educator Retires After Four Decades of Shaping Young Minds in Idaho
Midvale, Idaho — When Varina Pickett chose her career path, she carried a simple but powerful conviction with her into every classroom: leave the world a better place. Forty years later, as she prepares to retire from Midvale Elementary School, the evidence of that conviction stands in the form of two former students who now teach alongside her in the same small Idaho school where her career began.
“I really believe that one should leave the world a better place,” Pickett said, reflecting on the philosophy that has guided her through four decades in education.
Pickett grew up far from the rolling hills of southwest Idaho — in Fairbanks, Alaska, the daughter of a statistics professor. The frigid north gave her a strong foundation, but she longed for four full seasons and a different kind of life. Her involvement in 4-H proved to be a defining influence, instilling in her a sense of service and a broader view of the world beyond her own wants and needs.
“It gave me the outlook of looking beyond myself, and what I want, to what is better for the world? How can I help improve the world?” she said.
In pursuit of that wider horizon — and those four seasons — Pickett enrolled at the College of Idaho, where she met her future husband, Alan Pickett. When Alan returned to his family’s roots in Midvale, becoming the fourth generation to work the family farm, Varina followed. She walked into Midvale Elementary School and never looked back.
A Small School With a Lasting Impact on Idaho Education
Midvale Elementary School serves a tight-knit community of approximately 130 students — a small number that, in many ways, made Pickett’s influence all the more concentrated and lasting. In a state where Idaho consistently ranks among the lowest in the nation for per-pupil spending, dedicated career educators like Pickett represent an outsized force in shaping student outcomes, particularly in rural communities where teacher turnover can undermine continuity.
Pickett said she gravitated toward younger students from the start, drawn to their natural grace in the face of human imperfection — a quality she found refreshing and freeing as a teacher.
“If you make a mistake with elementary school kids and you go, ‘Ope, I’m human, I made a mistake,’ they go, ‘Oh well, that’s OK,'” Pickett said.
That humility and openness, her former students suggest, was part of what made her so effective. Two of those students went on to become educators themselves — and returned to Midvale Elementary to teach, a full-circle outcome that speaks to the depth of the impression Pickett left.
The story of a teacher whose influence echoes through generations is a testament to the enduring value of committed educators in small Idaho communities. While policy debates often center on funding formulas and administrative structures, it is individual teachers who define the culture of a school. In Midvale, that culture was built over four decades, one classroom at a time.
Stories like Pickett’s also underscore the importance of community investment in rural schools. Efforts to support teacher development and student achievement in smaller Idaho districts — such as programs focused on achieving greatness through grit and community commitment — reflect a growing recognition that excellence in education is not reserved for larger urban districts.
What Comes Next
As Varina Pickett steps away from the classroom after 40 years, her retirement marks the close of a remarkable chapter for Midvale Elementary School. The two former students she inspired — now teachers themselves — carry forward the values she modeled: humility, service, and the belief that education is one of the most direct paths to leaving the world better than you found it. For the approximately 130 students currently enrolled at Midvale Elementary, that legacy is not a memory — it is a living, daily reality walking the same hallways Pickett called home for four decades.