Ms. Hartley is one of the Spanish teachers at DeBakey HSHP. She teaches a variety of courses including Spanish Pre-Ap and Spanish AP. She is admired by her many students for her unique way of teaching. She is both funny and wise. She passes to us her knowledge, also known as pearls of wisdom. She is a very active faculty member, and is the club sponsor for the Multicultural Awareness Club and Spanish Honor Society. Every year she and the club members come up with new ideas for projects that benefit our school. She organizes the very elegant and wonderful Induction Ceremony for the Spanish Honor Society. It can truly be said that she is a most intelligent, loving, and caring teacher.
 

                                    Ms. Hartley

  Born several years ago in Charlotte (named for Queen Charlotte), North Carolina (also known as the "Queen City" and named for Queen Charlotte); she was educated in the public schools there, and loved her teachers!  In third grade she had "Miss Charlotte", who allowed Marilyn to wear her crown for the May Day Parade!  In middle school she joined a small group of gifted and talented students who were allowed to study English, History, Math, and Sciences at their own pace.  They had the same teacher, Miss Peggy Johnson (a young, enthusiastic and energetic teacher), for most of the day during three years.  Miss Johnson also taught Spanish, and she moved on with the group to Harding High School.  Marilyn continued her study of Spanish along with an advanced college preparatory curriculum.  She actually taught a Spanish 2 class while a senior.  She was a National Merit Scholar, editor of the school newspaper, named to Who's Who, president of National Honor Society, president and co-founder of Future Teachers of America, and Outstanding Journalist among high school editors.  She graduated as Valedictorian of her class (540 students) and was named "Top Senior of the Year" in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, both public and private.  She won a full academic scholarship to the college of her choice in North Carolina, as well as a full 4-year scholarship from Future Teachers of America.

     She chose the University of North Carolina for her college studies, majoring in Secondary Education, English, and Spanish.  She was invited into the Honors Programs in both disciplines.  She was named to Phi Beta Kappa and graduated Summa Cum Laude.

     Remember her middle and high school Spanish teacher, Miss Johnson?  She eventually married Ernest Hartley.  On a trip to visit her esteemed teacher, Marilyn met Mr. Hartley's younger brother John.  After graduating from U.N.C. she married John Hartley, who was then serving in the United States Air Force and was stationed at Bergstrom Air Force Base in Austin, Texas.  Thus began their lives together and their love of Texas.  Mr. Hartley, whose assignment was highly secretive and involved the famed "Blackbird SR-71" super spy plane, was transferred to Thailand, and Mrs. Hartley returned to U.N.C. to teach.  Her first assignment was at the very same middle school where she had been a student!  The Spanish program had died away, so she had to start from scratch to recruit students.  Soon thereafter she was recruited to head the high school division of the newly established Bilingual Program in the Charlotte schools.  Twenty-seven of her colleagues (many of whom had been her teachers) took her to surprise farewell/good luck luncheon.  As the convoy was returning to the middle school, the cars were in an accident and many of the teachers were badly injured, Mrs. Hartley among them.  But she recovered from the various breaks and other injuries and was finally able to take the administrative position and simultaneously begin work on her Master's Degree.  She completed her Master of Arts in Education, Spanish, English, and Curriculum and Supervision in '82, earning a perfect 4.0 and a seat on the Advisory Council and Nominating Committee of the U.N.C. Phi Beta Kappa Chapter.  Her husband had completed his tenure in the Air Force and went on to pursue a degree in architecture.  Shortly before graduation ceremonies and in the course of one month, Mrs. Hartley's sister (then living and teaching in Austin, TX) gave birth to a little girl, and her mom died.  While Mr. and Mrs. Hartley were visiting the Austin relatives and the new baby, Mr. Hartley interviewed for an architecture position in Houston, and the rest, as they say, is history.  The Hartleys moved to Houston where he began his career as an architect and she took a position at The Kinkaid School, a private college preparatory K-12 school in Memorial.  There she taught Spanish and took students on Study Tours to Spain, Ecuador, Peru, Argentina, Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico.  She joined Mrs. Gewinner, also a Kinkaid teacher at that time, on a Study Tour of Renaissance Art and Architecture in Italy and France.  She and Mrs. Gewinner were co-sponsors of the Spirit of Kinkaid (or "SOK") Club where they began their many collaborative efforts.  Together they taught a variety of art history courses during Interim Term in January.  Mrs. Gewinner's move to DeBakey after her daughter graduated precipitated Mrs. Hartley's consequent move to H.P.  And she has a happy DeBakey faculty member for four years.  She established the DeBakey Chapter, Dr. Atl, of the National Spanish Honor Society in 1999, and there has been an evening induction ceremony each year since.  She is also advisor to the Multicultural Awareness Club, or "MAC', whose members raised funds to place flags representing the multicultural heritage of student body, faculty, and staff here at H.P.  The members spent a long and arduous Saturday ironing, drilling, measuring, and installing those flags.   They have participated yearly in the Human Race Fun Run for Diversity and have contributed to several other efforts to make DeBakey an even better place to be!  Mrs. Hartley feels that the diversity at DeBakey is surely its most valuable asset.  Her favorite event is the International Festival.  She finds the students to be exceptionally intelligent and open to learning, and she loves the atmosphere at H.P. Mrs. Hartley lives on a small lake in the northwest part of Houston.  Next to her students, she loves her miniature longhaired dachshund (wiener dog!), Heidi-Pooh, best of all.  She loves animals (dogs in particular) and has owned 5 "hotdogs" and 2 Russian wolfhounds.  She is intensely interested in the study of indigenous groups of Latin America, and she collects representative folk art, particularly Day of the Dead pieces.  She enjoys biking, traveling, reading crafts (especially beaded masks!), as well as art, photography, and architecture.  She would love to garden more if the fire ants would kindly step aside.  P.S.  Remember that middle school/high school teacher who so influenced Mrs. Hartley?  She and her husband are professors of Spanish at U.N.C. now; she and Mrs. Hartley are sisters-in-law!  The little baby girl that Mrs. Hartley and her husband came to Austin to visit is now a U.T. junior!

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Michael E. DeBakey High School for Health Professions
3100 Shenandoah Street, Houston, TX  77021
Phone:  (713) 741-2410       Fax:  (713) 746-5211
Principal: Dr. Charlesetta Deason

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