Every morning, Tyler Dixon positions himself at the hallway intersection near the cafeteria. From 7:30 to 7:56 a.m., he greets each student by name, offering a moment of consistency in their often tumultuous teenage lives.

"I don't know what's going on. I don't know if they had a bad night. I don't know if they didn't get any sleep," Dixon says. "So if I can give them some sort of normalcy, some sort of routine..."

For Dixon, 34, teaching English at Meridian High School represents a homecoming in more ways than one. Growing up in Mounds, he walked these same hallways until sixth grade before transferring to St. Mary Cathedral School in Cape Girardeau and later Notre Dame High School.

"I love being from Mounds," Dixon says with pride. "It's one of my favorite things to tell people because you always hear negative things, and that is a bother. Anytime you can change someone's perception of a place, I think that's a good thing."

After high school, Dixon attended Shawnee College without a clear career path. A writing class with professor Sandy Fontana sparked something, leading him to SIU Carbondale where he majored in journalism. He graduated in 2014 and began a decade-long career as a sports writer and editor, with stops in Effingham, Illinois; Hopkinsville and Owensboro, Kentucky; and Poplar Bluff, Missouri.

Then life took an unexpected turn when his former high school English teacher reached out. She was retiring from Notre Dame High School and thought of Dixon as her replacement. He taught there for a year before a brief stint in sports information at SIU's athletic department.

After substituting at several area schools, Dixon found himself in conversation with Alex Washam, a lifelong friend from Mounds who now works at Meridian. When Dixon protested that he wasn't an English teacher, Washam replied simply: "You don't have to be an English teacher. You have to teach them English."

Now Dixon teaches freshman, sophomore, and junior English classes, plus a marketing course. As a "permanent sub" with his subject test and certification still in progress, Dixon brings a refreshingly practical approach to the classroom.

"I tell the kids all the time, if I were my English teacher in high school, I would probably like me as well," he says with a laugh. "I'm not gonna give them a research paper every week. That's not gonna be gauging success for me."

Instead, Dixon focuses on fundamentals: "If you leave my classroom and you know how to write things down, know how to think, come up with some sort of thought and speak and put it in a sentence, then that's a win for me. If you can do those three things when you graduate, you're gonna be fine."

His journalism background gives Dixon unique credibility when discussing the importance of communication skills in the real world. Having interviewed countless coaches during his sports writing career, he often tells students that academic performance is the first thing college recruiters ask about—not athletic statistics.

Teaching at Meridian offers Dixon advantages that most first-year teachers don't have. His father attended Meridian, his mother went to rival Cairo, and his deep local connections mean he knows many students' families. "Most of my students—I know their aunts, uncles, parents," he explains.

Beyond the classroom, Dixon takes photos at school sporting events, posts them for students on his Facebook page, and plans to help coach baseball in the spring. He's also teaching speech and interpersonal communication courses at Shawnee College.

Though he admits some days are challenging, Dixon finds fulfillment in the small victories: "I've had days when I left, and I thought, 'If I don't come back, that's fine.' But then I come back the next day and, like, first hour, somebody says something and I start laughing, and I'm like, 'Okay, that's why I'm here.'"