Thirty years ago, Jim Honeycutt, one of the Media Lab advisers at Staples, began his career as a social studies teacher at Long Lots Junior High School.
Little did he know that three decades later he would be able to call Denise Honeycutt, the Spanish teacher in the adjacent classroom, his wife.
“We met back when Long Lots was a junior high school for seventh to ninth graders,” said Mrs. Honeycutt, who is now a guidance counselor at Staples. “I had taught there for seven years and Mr. Honeycutt was there for the last three. Those were the best.”
“After Long Lots I moved to Staples to be the first computer teacher,” said Mr. Honeycutt. “Coincidentally, Mrs. Honeycutt moved to Staples during the same year to replace another Spanish teacher.” Mrs. Honeycutt later moved on to become a guidance counselor.
They both concede that working together is anything but strange. “We’ve always worked in the same place, so we don’t know any different,” said Mrs. Honeycutt. “I think it works because we each do our own thing.”
“Mrs. Honeycutt has lunch with the rest of the guidance department and we both drive our own cars to school,” said Mr. Honeycutt.
Despite going about their school days separately, they can recall a number of cute stories from over the years.
“I was already at Staples, but back in the day you didn’t have at-home pregnancy tests, so Mr. Honeycutt went to the lab to pickup my results,” said Mrs. Honeycutt. “He showed up at my classroom door with a bunch of red roses to tell me that I was pregnant with our first child.”
The Honeycutts, who now have two full-grown daughters, believe that the fact that they are both teachers has impacted their children’s career choices.
“From the get-go our oldest daughter, Jennifer, wanted to be a nurse,” said Mr. Honeycutt.
“She went to college for nursing and is now in the Education Department, teaching and training new nurses,” said Mrs. Honeycutt.
Their younger daughter was a Studio Art student in college and spent the summers working with handicapped adults.
“She discovered that she liked working with autistic adults and now she is going on to become a Special Education teacher,” said Mr. Honeycutt.
“I think we’ve definitely influenced them,” said Mrs. Honeycutt.
The Honeycutts also believe that in the coming years it will not be surprising to see even more teacher relationships than those that already exist, which include P.E. teachers C.J. Shamas and Kelly Garrity and English teachers Gus Young and Liz Olbrych.
“With all of the young teachers coming in, it’s inevitable that relationships will happen. When people work together things like that just happen,” said Mr. Honeycutt.
