Summer is a great time to enjoy warm weather, but Susan Meller's first sunny season after retirement may be even more tropical than she originally expected.
Meller is retiring at the end of the month after 36 years of service with St. Martin Catholic School.
She received a surprise gift Tuesday, a $1,400 certificate from local travel agency Travel Answers Inc., "for the trip of my choice, I assume," she said.
St. Martin Principal Eddie Mulholland said each student chipped in $5 for Meller's gift.
Meller said she doesn't know exactly where she'll go yet and hadn't even had a chance yet to talk about it with her husband. "Probably Mexico, but I don't know for sure yet," she said - maybe Puerto Vallarta or Cancun.
Her family and grandchildren were also in the audience Tuesday morning when she got the surprise gift.
"I consider St. Martins my home away from home," she said of the school where her children and grandchildren have attended. "The community and people here are very special to me."
She spent 32 years at St. Martin as a kindergarten through third-grade teacher, spending most of it with third grade, she said.
Meller has been school secretary for the last four years. Her last day probably will be May 30.