While reflecting on how much her farm, “Little Peace of Heaven,” means to her, chemistry teacher Jean Hayhurst paused to clear her throat, and she started to tear up.
“My farm is a labor of love,” Hayhurst said.
Hayhurst’s devotion motivates her to commute two and a half hours every Friday afternoon to her farm on the Eastern Shore.
“People go pay for therapists, I go to the farm,” Hayhurst said. “It’s just a place for me to […] process the whole week. It gets me away. I have less stimulus, so I can […] just have some nice quiet time.”
Hayhurst said family members have asked why she continues the weekend commute instead of taking a job on the Eastern Shore, but she said she loves her job at Marshall too much to consider quitting.
“Fairfax County is the first county that I’ve taught that I’m treated as a professional,” Hayhurst said. “As long as I get my professional duties done in a timely fashion it’s acceptable, so I love working here. […] I love [the] kids, I love the school, I love the people I work with.”
English teacher Jonathan Super said he also withstands a substantial commute in order to preserve the balance between a lifestyle and job he loves. Super commutes from Baltimore, spending about an hour in the car in the morning and between an hour and a half and two and a half hours on the way home.
“I like where I live and I like where I work, so I have a long commute,” Super said. “I like the music and the art [in Baltimore] and I like my house. I don’t want to move.”
English teacher Matthew Horne also faces close to an hour long commute each morning and afternoon. Unlike Super, Horne said he would move closer to Marshall if he could afford it.
“This job doesn’t pay enough for me to afford a house in Fairfax County,” Horne said. “I have four kids, so there’s some advantage to having more space […] in Fauquier County, but if I was making more money, I would live closer to my job.”
Horne said he has considered taking a job closer to his home, but, like Hayhurst and Super, he also does not want to leave Marshall.
“The trade-off is worth it for me to work [here],” Horne said. “I’ve been here for 10 years and [I] like the administration and my department chair so much that working closer to my house hasn’t really been worth it to give all that up.”
2019-03-25