A staple at Windsor Middle School is officially retiring.

Teacher Kevin Bishop, who has taught and coached at Windsor for the past 26 years, is calling it quits.

In total, Bishop has been in education for 31 years.

“I have been a teacher and coach at Oakville, Potosi, Windsor and Hillsboro. I have also coached football, wrestling, baseball, and currently track,” Bishop said.                                                                             

He has taught science, math and social studies to fifth and sixth graders.

Bishop went into teaching by following most of his family. Some of Bishop’s family members were teachers. 

“Several relatives were teachers and coaches, so I more or less followed in their path,” Bishop said.

Bishop was favored by many of his students and athletes.

“Coach Bishop was by far my favorite teacher for social studies and he was my favorite coach for football, wrestling and now track. We also had a lot of fun in his class because we did a lot of projects and watched a lot of movies in his social studies class,” junior Seif Elkhashab said.

Bishop is known to be a storyteller inside and outside of the classroom.

“Mr. Bishop was my favorite teacher because he was very nice and would tell so many stories. I had him for social studies and earth science, ” junior Noah Schaeffer said.

Bishop has mixed feelings about retiring from his past 31 years of teaching. Many of his past students and student athletes are sad to hear that his retirement is coming.

Track throwers such as Elkhashab and Schaeffer will have a new coach next season.

“It will be pretty hard to get along with another (coach), especially that it will be my senior year,” Elkhashab said.

Even when school gets out on Wednesday, Bishop’s job will not be complete. He will be heading to Jefferson City to coach Elkhashab at the state track meet. The junior advanced to state in shot put, discus and javelin.

“I love that Coach Bishop is going out on a good note,” head boys track coach Jeff Stoffey said. “Plus, I’d like to hear the same stories he’s been retelling for the past several years.”

Bishop is going to miss his teaching job.

“The relationships formed are the best part of my job and also what I will miss the most,” Bishop said. “It is kind of weird that the past couple of years, many of my students’ parents were, in fact, students or athletes of mine.  I can’t be that old.”