Teachers are a special group of professionals.

They study just as long and hard as lawyers, engineers or businesspeople, yet they earn only a fraction of the pay after graduation. What teachers do earn, they often put into classroom materials for their students, in order to make up for budget shortcomings on the state level.

Teachers also regularly put in unpaid overtime, creating lesson plans and grading homework late into the night, on weekends, and even during their summer vacation. Sometimes a simple “thank you” can be delayed by years or decades, until students realize all that their teachers did for them.

Why would anyone do such a job? If you ask Cottonwood Middle School eighth-grade teacher Angie Hillman, she’ll tell you teachers do the job simply because they love it.

For the full story, see the Wednesday, May 16, edition of The Camp Verde Journal or the Cottonwood Journal Extra.