MEXICO — Rose Osborn has wrestled with whether to retire for the past three years.

This year, the nearly 40-year veteran of the classroom decided it was time.

“I still love teaching,” Osborn said from her Title I classroom at Mountain Valley Middle School.

Since graduating from the University of Southern Maine in 1971, she has taught the primary grades, gifted and talented students, special education, and for the past 24 years, middle school Title I youngsters.

“As a Title I literacy specialist, I work with students who have reading tangles,” she said.

Her first few teaching years were in Illinois, Greene and Monson, but since 1981 she has taught in the former SAD 43 and now RSU 10.

“We’re hoping to winter in Florida, then come back to Hartford in the summers,” she said.

Osborn, 63, is a 1967 graduate of the former Stephens High School in Rumford.

She decided to become a teacher as a young girl when her mom described her experiences as a summer school teacher at the now defunct McDonald School in the Smith Crossing section of Rumford.

It’s been a very satisfying career.

“I love children,” she said. “I like to get the kids to think and I like the interaction between students and the teacher.”

One of her favorite moments as a teacher was when she accompanied a group of children to Boston.

“They were so excited when they saw the city for the first time,” she said.

Osborn will keep her interest in teaching by substituting in her home district and, hopefully, she said, substituting in Florida when she and her husband, Alan, are there.

“I also plan to keep in touch with the kids and my colleagues,” she said.

She is a certified psychic and medium with the Pinpoint of Light Spiritualist Center in Hartford and hopes to devote more time developing readings and public demonstrations.

Osborn is also a self-described neophyte gardener. She hopes she’ll be able to return to some of the places she visited when she was younger, such as England, Paris and Rome. Although she has traveled to the western part of the United States, she hasn’t seen much of the Midwest and wants to explore that area, as well.

She and her husband also want to continue their visits to the Major League Baseball parks around the country.

Osborn and her husband are the parents of two adult children: Molly, who is a professor of Victorian literature at Northern Colorado University; and Seth, who works with developmentally disabled adults in Bridgton.

“I will be in tears when I leave in June,” she said.

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