By DIANE GASPER-O'BRIEN

dobrien@dailynews.net

There's a laminated sheet of paper on a closet door in Elouise Miller's classroom, displaying an excerpt from Robert Fulghum's book, "All I Ever Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten."

It's a teaching philosophy Miller has lived by for a lot of years.

And as Miller's long career in education winds down this month, it's been a principle often referred to the past several weeks by those who know her.

Miller, 78, has taught elementary school students for 60 years, including the past 53 in one building -- Lincoln Elementary in Hays -- and has taught more than 2,600 students during that time period.

She decided earlier this school year this would be her last year of teaching.

Not because of health problems or anything like that. In fact, just the opposite.

"I'm still having fun, but I have to retire sometime," said Miller, who will turn 79 later this fall.

"I didn't want to (take a chance of getting) sick and have a substitute have to fill in for me for a long period of time," she said. "That's too hard on the kids."

It will be hard for those in Hays USD 489, especially at Lincoln, to imagine a school year beginning next fall without Miller.

But they weren't thinking about next year yet this month, throwing party after party in her honor.

"You'd have thought no one ever retired before," said Miller, who welcomed the many chocolate goodies her colleagues gave her in retirement baskets last week.

Everyone who knows Miller knows she's been in the business of teaching youngsters a long time.

But an incident that made it clear just how long was when one of her students from her first class in Osborne County showed up at a reception for Miller earlier this month at Lincoln.

"She hasn't changed in years," Larry Nichols from Alton said.

Nichols was a second-grader in Miller's first class at Liberty Bell School, 10 miles northwest of Alton, during the 1948-49 school year.

"I thought it was a neat coincidence that I could attend a retirement reception for my second-grade teacher and my 50th class reunion (from high school) in two weeks' time," Nichols said.

Kindergarten 'a good fit'

After teaching first grade her first nine years at Lincoln, she moved to the kindergarten level in 1966.

She's been there ever since.

It's a good fit, said Miller, who likes the honesty of kindergartners.

"If they don't like something, they'll tell you," she said.

"They're eager at this age, and they like school," Miller added. "They still have the same basic needs; they need love and attention."

And Miller seems to have been born with an overabundance of those traits.

"You know the thing 'everything you need to know you learned in kindergarten,' " fellow kindergarten teacher Heidi Wamser said of Miller's adherence to Fulghum's philosophy. "Totally true, totally true."

Wamser, a former student of Miller's, has gotten to teach in the room next to Miller's the past three years.

Wamser's oldest child, Easten, also studied under Miller his kindergarten year in 2007-08.

"I wouldn't have had him anywhere else," Wamser said.

That's because Miller has firmly adhered to Fulghum's fundamental ground rules.

Share, play fair, don't take things that aren't yours, put things back and clean up your own mess are just a few of the traits on Fulghum's list that Miller pointed out last week.

"If adults would follow these, we would have a lot less problems in the world," Miller said.

She tried her best for 60 years to make sure her students learned the basics of life.

Miller's early life

Miller was born one of six siblings in Alton in Osborne County, where she began her teaching career at the age of 17.

After two years of teaching in one-room country schools in Osborne County, then in Woodston for five years, she moved to Hays in 1955 to finish her bachelor's degree at Fort Hays Kansas State College.

She got a job the next year as a first-grade teacher Lincoln, where she stayed the rest of her long career.

The move to Hays was a big change for the small-town country girl.

"We went from no indoor plumbing and carrying coal for heat to this," Miller said with a smile, sweeping her hand around her room that now features central air and heat, a restroom right off her classroom and all kinds of technological teacher aids.

She adjusted quite well.

Learning: A lifelong trait

Once in Hays, Miller set about earning her master's degree in education, as well as an education specialist degree in reading.

Not long after receiving her specialist degree, Miller said a friend of hers tried to talk her into teaching at the college level.

"She said that anybody can teach kindergarten, and I wanted to bop her," Miller said.

Miller, and anyone who knows her, would beg to differ.

Children learn best when they have a strong foundation of the basics, Miller said.

"It's the same things my teachers taught me," she said simply. "They just call it something different now."

One of those "somethings" is the question of the importance of teaching phonics.

"I know it's been in and out and in out out, but I think it's important," she said. "So I've always taught it."

"A few years ago, I had the opportunity to spend quite a bit of time in her classroom," said Fred Kaufman, superintendent of USD 489 since the mid 1980s. "At that time, my observation would have been that she may have been doing this for a long time, but she is ahead of us all."

"She was doing things we thought we were just discovering," Kaufman added, "and she'd been doing them for years."

Miss Miller's room

Miller's classroom is a youngster's dream come true.

Tables and pint-sized chairs are only a small part of this classroom, where a whole lot of learning is done away from their desk area.

In addition to the normal kindergarten curriculum, Miller still teaches her own physical education, art and music. An upright piano sits in the middle of the room.

Students call homemade cardboard study carrels their "private office."

There is a stage, home to hundreds of puppet shows over the years, and a playhouse, complete with a small replica of a refrigerator, stove and sink and microwave.

An elephant made out of sawhorse and padding, Miller estimates to be more than 50 years old.

During activity periods, Miller splits up the students in different groups.

"That way, they find out everybody is fun to play with," she said.

Sounds like that could be on Fulghum's list.

He obviously had someone like Miller in mind when he wrote his book.

Life as a teacher

Miller never married.

"I always said (a husband) would have divorced me, because I'm here all the time," she said.

Miller usually was the first staff member to school every morning.

"I'd plug in the coffee, and I don't even drink coffee," she said.

She also usually was the last to leave at night.

After a day of teaching, Miller would break up her evening with a trip to the swimming pool at Fort Hays State University for a round of aqua-sizing.

A lover of the arts, Miller regularly attends events sponsored by the Hays Arts Council and plays and musicals at the university and local high schools.

But if there weren't any extracurricular activities on her schedule, she often would stop back by school on her way home from the pool.

"(School) is too close to every place I go," she said with a smile. "It's on my way home from church, from the store."

Miller paused.

"I just really like it here," she said.

She'll be back

Miller says she won't be a stranger.

"I won't substitute," said Miller, who plans to travel in retirement.

She's already visited all 50 states and every continent but Antarctica.

"But I'll be back to visit," she added.

Some teachers are glad for the end of the day, and the end of the year, to come.

Not Miller.

She always taught right up to the last day, the last hour, the last minute.

This year was no different, directing the students as she accepted retirement gifts from parents as they came to pick up their children.

"Here, this is for you," Austin Christian said, pushing a brown bear into Miller's hands after his mom, Jessica Christian, gave her a plant.

"It's going to be an adjustment next year," admitted Elaine Rohleder, in her 16th year as principal at Lincoln. "Miss Miller knows exactly what to do, has this routine and knew what to do for these new kindergartners."

Miss Miller memories

Miller plans to return to school throughout this week, to clean out 60 years of books and supplies.

"People are always asking to borrow things from me," she said.

"They always say, 'Go to Miss Miller's room. She'll have it,' " Miller said. "And I usually did."

Miller glanced around one of several storage rooms in the school which she claimed as hers.

Many of her library books date back to the days of having 45 RPM records inserted in sleeves in their back cover.

"I'm leaving a lot of these books," she said. "Someone will be able to use them."

Those won't be the only memories of Miller.

"We won't have our sounding board, and we'll miss that," Rohleder said. "But we will never forget her. There are memories all around of Miss Miller. She's going to be a legend."