Where Are They Now?

Like her father and grandfather before her, Pam Wolfe has always loved math. Now, more than 50 years after her high school graduation, Wolfe has made math her career, working first as an IT professional for the State of Texas and then as a math and chemistry teacher.

“A very valuable lesson that my parents taught me at a young age is that I could do and be anything I wanted to be,” she said. “I did not have anybody telling me, like many women my age, that I needed to be a nurse or a teacher. They told me I could do whatever I wanted, and I believed that.”

Wolfe graduated from Dublin High School in 1970 and went to Tarleton, where she double majored in math and chemistry. She also earned a teaching certificate on the side. Fresh out of college, she started grad school in San Marcos at what is now Texas State University. But coming straight from undergrad left Wolfe tired and frazzled, so she decided to leave school and spend a few years working. For a while, she worked as a bookseller at the largest bookstore in Austin, and spent a couple of years teaching in Blanket, TX.

When her father, Sam Wolfe, passed away in 1981, Wolfe decided to move back in with her mother, and took a job at K-Mart working as the head of the jewelry department. Her mother chipped in to help Wolfe go back to graduate school, and she graduated in 1983 with an MBA from Tarleton.

Once she finished school, Wolfe moved back to the Austin area and began working as a computer programmer for the Texas Department of Health. The job was perfect for her training. “Being a mathematician, I’m a natural born analyst,” she said. “I love debugging and finding the problems in programs, and I love designing programs, projects and systems.” At the Department of

Health, Wolfe moved up from programmer to analyst to project manager, and finally to division director. She left her job at the State in 1999 and took a few years off work before going back to teaching.

When she did go back to work, she taught at a high school in Killeen, and then at Travis High School in Austin. At first she taught Algebra 1, which Wolfe considers the most boring math class. She was happy when, within a short time, she had taught classes in pre AP algebra, pre AP geometry, math modeling and pre-cal.

She was also a sponsor for the Academic Decathlon, and helped students study 10 different subjects to prepare for the quiz-based competition.

Wolfe retired for good in 2013, and since then has devoted most of her time to her favorite volunteer organization: the American Association of University Women, or AAUW. “It’s a national organization that works for equity for women and girls,” she said. “I’ve been in it since 1981.”

Over her 40 years in the organization, Wolfe has held several leadership positions at both the local and state levels. At one point she even served as the president of the state organization. “When I was branch president, we had our 75th anniversary of the branch for when we started in 1923,” she said. “As President, I was able to help plan a big celebration at the Driskill Hotel in Austin, because that’s where the very first meeting of our branch occurred.”

Now she works mostly at the local level, where she serves on the nominating committee for her branch, and heads the governance committee, as well as applying for grants and helping out with IT and social media where she can. She also still enjoys planning events — ”We’re having our 100th anniversary in 2023 for the Austin branch, and I’m the chair of that celebration,” she said.

When she’s not volunteering, Wolfe can often be found reading. “My primary reading now is mysteries and some history,” she said. “I have so many books in my house, that what some people would call a game room in my house is a library.”

Wolfe currently lives in Round Rock. She married twice and divorced twice. “I retired from marriage last century,” she joked. “I’d had enough. And I have no children with two legs, but I do have cats; I’m a big animal lover.”

She cherishes the memories of her parents, Sam and Irene Wolfe, who have now passed away, and keeps a long-standing memento of them: “When my dad died in 1981, someone gave my mother a bougainvillea plant,” she said. “I still have that plant, and he’s alive and hardy.”

Wolfe’s advice to Dublin graduates is to choose a career based on their own interests and not the expectations of others. “Nowadays, you don’t have to go to college,” she said. “There are many good trade schools besides college, so do what you enjoy. Don’t choose a career that is not fun for you.”

Editor’s Note: This column chronicles what Dublin graduates have done since high school. If you have any suggestions for other grads, email publisher@dublincitizen. com.