Beloved Westfield High School teacher retires and heads to LA
By Anna Skinner
There are many Westfield High School teachers that students hold near and dear to their hearts, Nikki Davis being one of them. Davis, who retired at the end of the 2015 school year, provided students with an extraordinary and diverse amount of mentoring and memories during her time as a teacher at WHS for English, journalism, yearbook and ACP Composition classes.
One of the favorite and infamous things Davis was known for was her “carrots and salad” motto. Although she and the class decided to have a “carrots and salad” food day, Davis described the “carrots” as round and soft desserts with chocolate chips in them and the “salad” came baked in a pan with icing.
Davis was loved for more than just her “healthy” food days though, and she departed the school with folders full of thankful letters from students.
Students aren’t the only ones who will miss Davis. WHS business teacher Michelle Goudy also shared fond memories.
“I’ll miss our talks in the hallway, her sound system thundering through the thin walls and sharing our precious life moments. When we first became classroom neighbors, I apologized for being loud. She told me to never change; she claimed my loud laugh and lectures on the 4-P’s made her smile. And, I think it truly did … she loves people for who they are,” Goudy said.
Teaching has been an enormous part of Davis’s life since she started at Westfield 25 years ago, and as a career 39 years ago, but she has big plans for her retirement.
“I could not have retired without having something to do,” Davis said. She plans on spending lots of time helping teach her granddaughters.
At the end of this month, Davis is moving to Los Angeles to be with her oldest daughter Stefanie and four of her six grandchildren. She plans on taking a road trip with a good friend and her Labradoodle, Mack, shortly after the move to visit Las Vegas and Colorado. Then, for the entire month of August, Davis is visiting her middle daughter, Betsy, and the other two grandchildren who currently live in India.
After those busy first few months, Davis will return to her apartment in L.A. and focus on reading and writing for pleasure instead of for her job, posing the “granny-nanny” role to her grandchildren and finding different ways to practice her green thumb at her apartment.
“My big, big challenge is I love to garden, and I will be living in an apartment so I’ve been on Pinterest looking at window gardens and patio gardens and indoor gardens,” Davis said.
Davis never knew she wanted to be a teacher, yet at age 22 she loved literature and writing and decided to go into education. She said that she had no idea she would love it as much as she did.
“I don’t mind leaving the job. I mind leaving the students,” she said.
Another thing Davis looks forward to is living in a big city since she has never experienced that before. She is certain in a year her youngest daughter, Paige, will follow her to L.A.
In her free time, Davis enjoys her Bible study class and singing in her church’s choir. She was also on the board of a ministry called Dragonfly Mission International, which has adopted 22 single moms in Uganda, and provides a feeding program and adoption program to help send the kids to school. She hopes to continue her service with church when she moves.
Davis has touched so many students’ lives that some of her former students currently living in L.A. have already contacted her with hopes to go out to dinner once she moves.
More about Nikki Davis
Age: 62
Hobbies: Gardening, reading, church activities
Favorite lesson plan: Obedience to authority in ACP Composition because of how involved the students get in discussion
Favorite place to eat in Westfield: Erika’s
Most watched TV Show: “Hawaii Five-O,” “NCIS,” “Cedar Cove” and any of the Marvel comic shows.
