Gracious, nurturing, loving, compassionate, beautiful, grateful, patient and devoted to her family.

Those are descriptions of June McAdams, the Lufkin High School teacher who passed away in October after more than 40 years of teaching biology in the Lufkin school district.

Mrs. McAdams was a lifetime resident of Angelina County. She attended Stephen F. Austin State University, where she earned her major in Biology. She began working for Georgia Pacific’s Chemical Division, where she met the love her life, Hollis McAdams.

But June had more love to share with her beautiful grandchildren, Jaeden, Mattie, Jazzlyn and Julianna, who called her “Grandmommy.” Although Mrs. McAdams’s top priority in life was her family, she loved interior decorating, pageantry, and playing the dulcimer at Crockett’s Wooden Nickel, along with the beauty all around.

Mrs. McAdams was the quintessential educator. She continued to study and embrace meaningful change because she believed she needed to improve — not because she was not good enough, but because she believed if that she became a better teacher, there would be no limit to to what her students could achieve. As the skills her students needed changed, she did not fear the complexity of the progress but began studying and teaching forensic science classes for the first time.

Mrs. McAdams loved when her former students would come to her class and check up on her life. Whenever she was asked how one might change the world, she would say, “Be kind to one another.”