Language Arts teacher Dr. Cathern Wildey, who has taught at Gulf since the 1983-84 school year, is retiring. She was honored at a faculty meeting this morning by Mr. Imerson and the other teachers in the Language Arts Department.
This year, Dr. Wildey taught pre-IB English I and English Honors I. During her tenure at Gulf she has taught grades 9 through 12 and reading and gifted. She has been the English department chair and has taken two of her Creative Problem Solving teams to state and national championships. She is a National Board Certified language arts teacher.
She had planned to retire two years ago but says she stayed longer to fulfill her dream of helping to start the International Baccalaureate program at Gulf. She had proposed an IB program for Pasco County 20 years ago, serving on a task force that studied the issue. However, district officials concluded then that the student population was too small.
Dr. Wildey holds a B. A. degree in English from Marygrove College in Detroit, an M. A. in Education from the University of Detroit, and an Ed. D. in Educational Leadership from Nova University.
She taught elementary through high school in the metropolitan Detroit area for 18 years before coming to Florida. One of her students there was the daughter of the Mayor of Detroit.
Cathern Zylla was born in Detroit. She says her grandmother wanted her to be given the family name Azuba, but her mother, apparently disliking the name Azuba Zylla, chose instead another family name, Cathern. Her family says it is a Scandinavian spelling.
Cathy grew up in Wayne, Michigan, and attended St. Mary’s High School there.
She is married to Dave Wildey, who is a retired tool and dye worker. They have two adult children, Patrick, a manager of Tech Data in Clearwater, and Jeanette, a manager for a defense contractor at Langley AFB.
Cathy says she and her husband plan to camp and fish and travel to Jamaica and Europe. They expect to spend his 65th birthday at the Elvis museum at Graceland.
