With a new school year comes new teachers and faculty members joining the Apex High School community. This year, Apex is excited to welcome Ms. Yale, the new media specialist. I was able to interview her last week, so keep reading if you want to learn more about Ms. Yale.

Q: Where are you from?

A: “I am originally from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but I moved to North Carolina about four years ago, four and a half years ago.”

Q: Where did you go to school?

A: “I went to undergrad at Franklin and Marshall College, and I went to grad school to get my masters in library science at UNC.”

Q: What did you do before coming to Apex?

A: “Right before, I was getting my masters degree. I just graduated in May with my masters, and then before that, I was a third grade teacher in Northampton county.” 

Q: Do you have any pets?

A: “I have two pets; I have two cats; I love them dearly.”

Q: When did you know you wanted to be a media specialist?

A: “When I was a teacher before, I really liked working with kids; I liked working with kids of all ages… I didn’t go into elementary school because it was like that was the age group I prefer; it was more like that was what I wanted, to be able to teach. I didn’t feel confident in my high school subject teaching levels. I’ve alway liked working with kids, and then I realized that I didn’t love the pressures of, like, testing and classroom teaching, but I still wanted to work in schools. I love reading (that’s like my English degree and then my library degree) like reading books, those are my favorite, so I wanted to do as much work with books as possible and fostering love for reading.”

Q: As you said, this is your first year as a librarian?

A: “My first year as a librarian, yes.”

Q: If you had a different career path, what would you be instead of a teacher or librarian?

A: “When I was younger, I wanted to be an architect at some point. I really love houses and house design; I think it’s really cool. And then another big one is being an author.”

Q: What made you choose Apex; are you liking it here so far?

A: “I’m loving it so far…. I met Mr. Brown at a job fair, and of the people that I met there that day, he was the most welcoming and one of the best people I talked to there, so that just really made me feel welcome to come and then interview, and at the interview I had met Ms. Munger and everybody else, and everyone was so welcoming.”

Q: What do you like to do in your spare time?

A: “I like to read, shocker. I also like to hike and be outside, and contrary to that, I like video games a lot, so I will try and balance those.”

Q: What is your favorite video game?

A: “See, it’s hard; it cycles through; my top two though are Minecraft and Stardew Valley. Like I have one comfy one and one that I play various types of ways, sometimes online, sometimes just survival worlds.”

Q: Who or what is your biggest inspiration?

A: “That’s a hard one…..I would say something that inspired me a lot is a TED Talk. There’s a TED Talk called The Danger of a Single Story that was a huge inspiration to me. I first watched it when I was in undergrad, and then I feel like it popped up multiple times since then in different classes and different aspects of my life, and it’s always been very poignant for me.”

Q: What made you fall in love with reading?

A: “I’ve been reading since forever. It’s probably my parents; my parents were the biggest pushers of making sure that I was reading. They always read, too, so sometimes we’d just all be reading, and whenever  we went camping when I was growing up, we would be unplugged, so we’d just bring books.”

Q: What is your favorite book and why?

A: “That’s impossible.”

Q: What about your favorite author?

A: “It’s still hard, but a big favorite recently, I just finished the second one of Darius the Great, that series. The first one is Darius the Great is Not Okay, and the second one is Darius the Great Deserves Better. I liked both of those a lot. And then another author that I really like is Leigh Bardugo, who does Shadow and Bone and Six of Crows; those trilogies, those are really good. I haven’t read all of them yet, but I’m getting there.”

Q: Is there anything you would like to say to the students here at Apex?

A: “Come say hi. I’m just here all the time, so it’s really easy to come say hi.”

Ms. Yale is a great new asset to Apex, and the school is lucky to have her. Be sure to stop by the media center to say hello and check out a few books.