If you stay in a school long enough, you begin to see time differently. You watch kindergarteners grow into seniors. You watch personalities settle into themselves. You watch the arc of a whole childhood rise and fold back toward adulthood, and if you’re lucky, you get to witness the moment when a former student comes back through the door — taller now, steadier now, and grateful enough to cross a grocery store aisle for a half-hour conversation.

Jenny Williams knows those moments well. After all, she’s been part of Martinsville’s story for nearly her entire life.

A Martinsville graduate from the class of 1987, Jenny grew up surrounded by the kind of community rhythm that still defines the district today — relationships that span years, hallways, and generations. She left for college at Indiana State University in Terre Haute, began in marketing, and then made a pivot that would shape the next three decades of her life. She and her husband wanted to start a family, and teaching felt like a profession that balanced calling with practicality. “Teaching is good with families,” she said, and so she went back for her Business Education degree. Later, a master’s in library science followed — a degree she jokes she didn’t fully understand until she understood everything about it.

“There were certain classes I’d be like, I have to have a master’s degree to watch books?” she laughed. But then she discovered the deeper truth: the work of librarianship isn’t shelving; it’s cataloging knowledge, curating access, teaching information literacy, and shaping the intellectual heartbeat of a school. From that point on, everything made sense.

Her return to Martinsville was intentional. She wanted to come home. And when she was hired as the district’s business teacher 25 years ago, she also stepped into the role of technology coordinator. The combination — tech and library — might seem unlikely from the outside, but for Jenny it was natural. Both are about helping students navigate information, whether through pages or screens.

She began at the elementary school, teaching keyboarding and computer classes, and later shifted the schedule to spend mornings at the junior-senior high school and afternoons back at the elementary. She still splits her days between the two buildings, switching gears mid-day with the same calm energy she’s carried for years.

That dual presence has given her something rare: the chance to see students from their very first library book all the way to the moment they walk across the graduation stage. “I see kindergarten through graduation,” she said. “I see the good and the bad, the hard times and the successes.” When former students come back — sometimes from the military, sometimes just home for a weekend — Jenny is often one of the first people they seek out. Those return visits say everything about the kind of relationships she builds.

Martinsville has changed drastically since her own high school days. She and the current school board president graduated together, and the two often reflect on how far the district’s technology has come. “Remember when computers were in one room on the top floor with no windows?” she said. The building didn’t have air conditioning, so the computer lab had to be sealed off with its own cooling system. There were maybe six machines — eight at most — and students waited their turn. “And pray you typed it all right,” she added, “because if you made a mistake, it wouldn’t work.” Today’s world — cloud storage, laptops, AI — would have looked like science fiction back then.

AI in particular is rapidly reshaping her work. Jenny sees the wave coming, and she knows Martinsville’s kids will need to be ready. She talks about emerging expectations: businesses now ask job applicants how comfortable they are with AI. Colleges are writing new policies. Even kindergarteners may soon need basic training to help them discern what’s real and what isn’t. “We’ve got some work to do,” she said plainly, “for kids and for teachers.” But her voice never shaded toward worry — only responsibility. Technology evolves; Martinsville adapts. That’s always been the way.

Her librarian’s heart shows up most powerfully in Martinsville’s rejuvenated reading culture. Years ago, the district used Accelerated Reader, but the program gradually became too rigid — computer-determined goals, frustrated kids, overwhelmed parents. So they stepped away. When they returned, Jenny took a very different approach. “We put the human touch back into it,” she said. Teachers now set reasonable goals themselves, based on what they know their students can handle. And just as importantly, they made reading joyful again.

The AR Rockstar Party has become a beloved tradition: red carpet, balloons, music, celebrations in the hallway with both lower and upper grades recognized separately to save time. Students earn buttons and ribbons, displayed proudly outside their classrooms. Last year, because of the Olympics, Jenny and her aide 3D-printed medals — a charming idea that required far more patience than expected. Twelve medals took six hours each if everything went perfectly, and it rarely did. “We can’t do that again this year,” she laughed. But the intention remains: make kids feel like readers matter, because reading does matter. And the joy on students’ faces proves it works.

Jenny carries that same passion into conversations about why reading is foundational — not just for academics, but for communication, thoughtfulness, and success in any field, including the trades. “You gotta be able to read blueprints,” she said simply. Reading builds vocabulary, empathy, and the ability to adjust communication to who’s listening — one of the finer points she articulated with the ease of someone who understands both people and words.

And through it all runs a theme she returns to again and again: Martinsville is family. Not metaphorically — literally, experientially, daily. The district is small enough that teachers know children deeply, and long enough geographically that many residents still lack reliable internet access. During COVID, the district bought hotspots and planned to send them out on buses so kids could reach signals at churches or the lake. But she also knows that households without service still pay taxes, still care, still want to feel connected. That’s why she loved seeing the magazine in print instead of just online. Not everyone lives digitally. Human connection still matters.

Jenny’s life is full. She and her husband, both Martinsville grads, raised a daughter who recently married and now works as an occupational therapist in Columbus, Indiana. They still live in Marshall, the Blue Streaks community Jenny supports proudly — even if she laughs about the generational shift from “Blue Streak” as two words to the newer single-word version.

And now, after nearly 25 years, she finds herself surrounded by former students returning to teach, ready to join her in the lounge to “eat lunch and drink Diet Coke before school.” She beams about that. She should. It is the truest mark of an educator’s impact: students want to come back and continue the work themselves.

Jenny Williams doesn’t merely keep the library running or the district’s technology afloat. She keeps the thread — the continuity of Martinsville, its memory, its identity, its care for kids from their first nervous day of school to adulthood.

And because of her, that thread holds fast.