Mark Pifer, a member at Grace Polaris Church, a Charis Fellowship congregation in Columbus, Ohio (Mike Yoder, lead pastor), is completing 50 years in the classroom this year. Most of them have been as a teacher at Worthington Christian School, which is a ministry of Grace Polaris. He is featured in this month’s Worthington Christian Alumni News. A portion of that story appears below. Click here to read the complete article. Longtime members of the Charis Fellowship will remember that Mark is the son of Lester and the late Genny Pifer. (Lester Pifer led Grace Brethren Home Missions for many years.)
The Making of a Legacy
This school year, WCHS math teacher Mark Pifer is accomplishing something unheard of—he is completing fifty years of classroom teaching. You read that correctly, 5-0 years as a teacher and professor. This remarkable feat begs many questions: How does one work for 50 years, let alone in a classroom? And why?! Mr. Pifer’s sincere, humble response is, “The LORD receives credit for everything.”
Pifer’s career aspirations started in college. Although he did not originally think he wanted to be a math teacher as a senior in high school, he discovered he had a gift for teaching as an undergraduate student at Grace College. After completing his degree there, he started teaching at Mansfield Christian School. As MCS was expanding their school into upper grades, Pifer was their first high school math teacher. He worked there for nine years, developing their high school math curriculum. It was during this time that Pifer met his wife Maryann, whom he credits as being his “rock and stability” for the last 44 years. In 1978, he joined the faculty of Worthington Christian Schools.
During his 41 years at WC, Pifer has served in many distinctive roles and taught a myriad of classes. He has taught every level of math course from high school math through Calculus II at the college level. In the early 1980’s, he took a course at Devry University to learn how to code and program computers. Shortly after completing this course, WC purchased six Apple IIe computers, and Pifer became the school’s first computer teacher. He served in this capacity for two years before returning to a math classroom. He also was the school’s first Webmaster, developing and managing WC’s original website. In addition to serving with excellence and innovation in all of these roles at WC, Pifer found time to continue his own academic and professional pursuits elsewhere.
Click here to read the complete article.