Tough Loving Teacher Loses Battle to Cancer
By Jim Vail

Students, teachers, principals, family and many more came out last Friday night to say good bye to a teacher who was a fighter up until the end.

Celia Rivero, a teacher for nine years at Hammond Elementary School, and taught writing her last year at Shields Middle School, died last week at the age of 32 after being diagnosed with terminal cancer about six months earlier.

Perhaps the best words to describe her would be "full of life." 
Celia Rivero was filled with her Puerto Rican passion to teach kids and fill the hallways with laughter and cheer.

Rivero comes from a family of teachers.  Her mother taught at Washington High School, and then left to start her own sewing business, while her father also taught at Washington High School, and is a published poet.

Celia would always laugh as she would talk with teachers or chat with friends.  But her no nonsense approach in the classroom made her a favorite among the students.

She taught many grades, including primary, intermediary and upper, and what made her stand out was the different projects she would introduce to complement her lessons.

For example, I remember walking into a classroom one day and seeing her and her students' hands filled with paste as they paper mache objects.  I believe her family's artistic talents carried over into her teaching.

Celia was the type of person who had to speak to you, and for a while, about everything happening, and she always made you feel very good.  She loved people, and if anyone was a natural born teacher, Celia Rivero was definitely one of them.

Many of her colleagues who came to say good bye could only express shock that the cancer took her so quickly, in the prime of her life.

She had not yet started a family of her own.  

Her father Alvaro said he had just finished writing a poem about his brother who passed away earlier this year.  He has not had time to even think about his next poem to be dedicated to his daughter.

Her principal at Shields was kind enough to take her out of the classroom while she was beginning to undergo chemotherapy and had to use a wheelchair due to her weakened state.

For those who were blessed to have met Celia Rivero, all would agree she was one a kind, someone you can't ever really forget, the essence of a teacher, a human being and a lover of life.

Which gives us hope for the future.