LITTLE ROCK
When Rebekah Spellins enrolled at Benedictine College in Kansas, she intended to stay near Kansas City.
“I like to say that the Holy Spirit punted me back down to Little Rock,” Spellins said with a laugh. After struggling to find a school with teacher openings in Kansas City, she called Kathy House, principal of Christ the King School, to ask for advice. Shortly after, former pastor, now-Bishop Francis I. Malone called her in for an interview.
“It felt too easy, almost,” Spellins said. “But I prayed a lot about it, and the Lord knew this is where I was supposed to be.”
Spellins, 28, daughter of Deacon Randy and Kim Spellins, has been a second-grade teacher for the past seven years.
While many individuals credit their teachers with shaping them into the person they are supposed to be, Spellins credits her students and co-teachers with shaping her into a better teacher and person.
“Teaching is a very difficult job, and the students at Christ the King and the faculty and staff have been a huge blessing to me,” Spellins said. “I really could not be who I am without them.”
Spellins also credits her parents, who emphasized the role of faith in the day-to-day life of the home, with growing and molding her faith.
Determined to be a better teacher and servant of Christ, Spellins completed a master’s degree in literacy in May.
“I could tell I wasn’t being as effective as I could be, so I decided to do literacy with a dyslexia endorsement,” she said.
What national or global issue are you most passionate about?
“It’s got to be education. When I start talking about it, I feel like I’m running for office. Education is my central issue, and I have a lot of strong opinions about the way that we don’t invest in education in this country… Education as a whole is so interesting because I feel like if you talk to anybody on the street, they say education is so important, but we continue to refuse to invest in educational infrastructure.”
More stories will appear in our 15 Young Adults Who Inspire Us 2024 Section as they are posted online.
