Excellent Educator: Candy Moffitt Of Sweeney Elementary

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Today, it's common for people to switch jobs several times throughout their careers. But in Shakopee there is a teacher that has been walking through the same door for more than four decades.

Mrs. Candy Moffitt teaches music at Sweeney Elementary. She proves she loves what she does by coming to class everyday with the same passion she had when she first took the job 44 years ago. That's what makes her this week's Excellent Educator.

"It is never, ever old. We're always doing something new," she said.

Such as incorporating unique music, like a Mongolian folk song.

"Music is one of those things where you do want to try new things, you don't want to keep doing the same thing over and over because you could get a little bit repetitious," she said. "You have to always be striving for something new and different and to challenge yourself, and that's what keeps me going."

Even more than the music, Moffitt's first love is children. And she's had generations come through her class.

"I haven't met a grandma who I've had as a student yet, but I've had plenty of parents who have children that I have," she said. "It's a little surreal sometimes to remember what those [parents] were like as little ones and now they're raising a new generation. It's rewarding."

Moffitt is originally from Tracy, in southwest Minnesota. She graduated from St. Olaf College and has been at Sweeney since 1973.