In 2013, Debra “Dis” Disney retired from teaching health and physical education at Wheeler High School. Before Disney’s retirement, though, she shared about how much teaching meant to her and how much she enjoyed her position of being able to inspire her students.
“I loved every minute of it and I loved everyone that I taught with,” said Disney. “My biggest thing is I wanted everybody to be happy and get along; that was huge for me. I also would just motivate my students into loving some physical fitness in their life.”
Since Disney retired, she has spent her time traveling and spending time with her grandkids.
“We traveled to Florida for a month, and now we'll be leaving home on February 28; we are going to French Lick,” said Disney. “We have gone to French Lick many times, ever since the kids were like two and four.”
Disney and her family have been traveling to the French Lick Hotel for many years. She loves the surrounding nature and, most importantly, the hot tub.
“We love the condos that are there. They're huge, which makes it easy to roam free in the condos. They have a pool and a hot tub. We love to get in the hot tub,” said Disney. “There's also deer all around there and it's just very peaceful.”
While traveling so much, Disney has gotten to meet many people all around the United States.
“We've gone to many different places; our favorite place is New Smyrna Beach. We don't like to stay in one place for more than a month. We take this as our driving trip since we take three days to get down to Florida. We go to Hilton Head, we go to Charleston, we go to Savannah for a few days, then we get to our destination which is Fort Lauderdale,” said Disney. “We also like to go to New Smyrna for two weeks. We always go over there for St. Patrick's Day.”
Disney has always appreciated how traveling brings her together with friends from near and far.
“We travel with people from Maryland, Florida, and Ohio. We've kind of gotten a group of people that the family and I like to travel with,” said Disney.
Other than traveling, Disney also loves to golf. She has had her love for golf since she was in seventh grade when she won a tournament, but who really got her into golf is her husband, Steve. Steve has been golfing for a while, and Disney has learned many things from him.
“I am an athlete so I knew I could pick golf up. Steve has taught me some, but I also enjoy doing it on my own. I just love to see a beautiful shot,” said Disney. “Although, it can be the most frustrating sport that I've ever had to play at times.”
In addition to golf, Steve and Debra Disney also love to play other sports with their family.
“We have an annual Disney Family outing. My nephew actually was the one who wanted to start it. He wanted me to play in it as well, and we started that a couple years ago,” said Disney. “It includes all of our family. We usually play basketball but we also sometimes play golf.”
Disney keeps her life happy with the love she has for traveling, spending time with her family, and making the world around her a little brighter.