Phyllis Witkowski Dobbins (Cumberland, RI) “Who would ever have thought I would leave Ohio! It was such a great place to grow up! I have lived in seven other states over the past 50 years-Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Florida, Texas, Massachusetts and now Rhode Island--but there’s still no place like Brecksville for me.”

After graduating from the College of Wooster, Phyllis taught French and English in elementary, middle, and high schools in Ohio, Michigan and New Jersey. Charles Heinle, the owner of a small Philadelphia textbook publishing company, visited her classroom and asked her to work for him in sales and teacher training. It sounded like fun. From that time on Phyllis worked in sales, marketing and management for a variety of companies. She managed a language school chain. She sold financial and consulting services and computer-based training to Fortune 500 companies. “Thank goodness for Mrs. Bailey’s speech and debate club. And who would have guessed a BHS yearbook editor would spend the last 18 years of her career in educational publishing! I was a publisher for Heinle, now a major foreign language and ESL textbook publisher based in Boston.”

The real joy of Phyllis’s life has been her family. Phyllis met her husband at the language school and they married in 1976 in Hollywood, Florida. Their first son was born in 1977. He lives in Tampa, with wife and first grandchild, born in March, 2009. A second son was born in 1984 and lives about a mile from them.

“My husband and I ran an export company when we lived in Florida and we were able to travel throughout the Caribbean. We still enjoy travel and being outdoors. We hope to make it to the few states we have missed. We have a small garden and regularly walk a state park nearby. For the past eight years, I have been taking yoga classes. We are very active in the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). Now that I am retired I want to get back to the piano and to write our family history, which will include a big section about growing up with great kids and teachers in Brecksville, Ohio.”
(rev. 5-10-2010)