In 2017, I attended the funeral of my second cousin, Elaine McLaughlin. I don’t have a lot of relatives who are educators, but Elaine was one of them. She became a teacher at a time when non-traditional students were few and far between. At the age of 42, after serving for 20 years as the Johnson County Judge’s Clerk in Tecumseh, Nebraska, Elaine earned her Bachelor of Science in Elementary...