When school started earlier this month it was the first time in 48 years that Page resident Bernice Austin-Begay wasn’t in her Page High School classroom.

Austin-Begay retired in June as PHS’s first Navajo language teacher.

On September 24th her children – Sararesa “Sara” Hopkins, Laurel Begay Biglin, Akenabah “Kym” Begay and Reuben D. “Ben” Begay Jr. – organized an honorary retirement dinner for Austin-Begay and her husband, Reuben D. Begay, Sr., who retired from the Navajo Generating Station in 2011 after 30 years as a chemist, and high school science teacher.

Around 75 people attended the event which was held at the Sizzler restaurant in Flagstaff. Guests came from as far away as Tempe and Santa Fe, N.M. including several of Austin-Begay’s former students.

Martha Garrison, Austin-Begay’s younger sister, gave the blessing.

“It was very nice,” Austin-Begay said.

“A good teacher can have a major impact on a student’s life,” said Jefferson Begay, of Navajo Mountain. He also recalled Bernice’s father, noted Navajo Medicine Man Buck Austin, who was once an adviser to former Navajo Chairman Peter MacDonald.

Growing up in fear of being taken from their family, the Austin children learned to run and hide whenever a car approached their home. But one day, when she was nine, Bernice was too slow.

“I was captured,” she said.

After graduating from Chilocco, Bernice opted to attend NAU. Upon graduation she was invited by NASA to join the food program, but deiced to become a teacher.

She spent the last 31 years in the Page Unified School District, where she began as a 1st grade teacher. Bernice began teaching the Navajo language in 1994.

For the past 22 years she has taught Navajo to Page High School and Middle School students. She was the first Navajo language teacher in the PUSD.

Austin-Begay was listed in Who’s Who Among American Teachers during the 2005-2006 school year.

Rayshawn Sampson, a 2016 Page graduate, recalled trying to get away with sleeping in Austin-Begay’s class, but she always caught him.

“She was tough, but fair,” Sampson said.

Ellisha Tsinnijinnie, a current Page student, thanked Austin-Begay for all of her hard work.

Tsinniginnie first encountered Austin-Begay in middle school when she took beginning Navajo.