Where Are They Now?

Dublin graduate DeeDee Lambert grew up loving science and agriculture. Her father John Hodges is a doctor at Dublin Family Medicine, and her mother Loretta McGee studied equine science. “There was never a time that I wasn’t around family or friends that we didn’t talk about animals and science,” she said.

She also connected with her science teachers in Dublin, especially Judy Warner, Danny Prater and Jim Easterling.

Lambert spent years working in labs, and earned two master’s degrees in the sciences. Now, she’s following in the footsteps of her role models and working as a science teacher at White Horse Christian Academy in Stephenville. “I kind of took the long way around to becoming a teacher, but hopefully all the real life experiences that I have working in a lab are helpful to my students,” she said.

Lambert graduated from Dublin High School in 1992 and went to Tarleton, where she studied animal science with a minor in biology. After earning her bachelor’s degree in 1997, Lambert stayed on for a master’s degree in agriculture. She worked as a teaching assistant in agronomy labs there to earn money and credits for her degree, and graduated with her master’s in 1998.

In school, she met her nowhusband, Barry Lambert, and when they graduated the Lamberts married and moved to Kansas where Barry was starting on a PhD in nutrition at Kansas State University. Lambert began looking for work, and found a job at the university as a lab manager in a lab that studied food microbiology.

“I really enjoyed working in that lab,” she said. “We mainly focused on organisms like E. coli, Salmonella and Listeria. Those were our three main organisms, and they come up a lot in foodborne illness. We also worked with a lot of meat companies and anybody that was looking for research in what are safe cooking temperatures, how to properly store food, anything to prevent foodborne illnesses.”

She enjoyed the work so much that she decided to pursue another graduate degree in microbiology, and graduated in 2001. “I was a professional student, I guess,” she said.

When her husband finished his PhD (also in 2001), the Lamberts moved to Houston, and Lambert worked in a lab that studied cancer nutrition at the Texas A&M Institute of Biosciences and Technology.

In 2002, she heard about a shortage of teachers in Texas, and decided to take her career in a different direction. She’d always enjoyed teaching — whether it was TAing in school or working as a substitute teacher in her free time — and decided to enroll in a teacher certification program.

Her first teaching job was at Tarkington ISD teaching eighth grade science. She stayed there a year before the Lamberts moved back to Stephenville, where Lambert’s husband took a job working for Tarleton.

Lambert taught junior high science in Santo for a year, then worked at Gilbert Intermediate School in Stephenville. She taught fifth grade science there for nine years. Four years ago, in 2018, she started her current job as a science teacher at White Horse Christian Academy in Stephenville.

“I am the only science teacher at White Horse, so I teach freshmen IPC, biology, chemistry, and anatomy and physiology,” she said. “And then I also teach some elective classes. This year, I’m going to teach animal science as well as culinary arts.”

On average, Lambert usually has about five students in a class. “We really want to keep that small school appeal,” she said. “That’s one reason people like to go there. I have the same kids year after year, and I really like that because it’s like they’re my kids, and I like that relationship.”

During the height of COVID, her classes still met face to face. “It was a challenge to get them lessons that were meaningful to them during that time,” she said. “That was a huge experience in their lives.”

Lambert works hard to create a science curriculum that ties modern science to Biblical texts. “The way I look at it is, it all goes hand in hand,” she said. “There’s really nothing that I teach that you can’t explain biblically, or vice versa.”

When she’s not working, Lambert enjoys gardening and spending time with her husband Barry Lambert, who is the dean of the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources at Tarleton, and their 12-year-old son, Ross. The Lamberts live on 13 acres and raise sheep and border collies. “We used to do a lot of sheep dog training,” she said. “We’d send the dogs out to gather the sheep and put them through a pattern and all that. We pretty much raise the sheep and work with the dogs and go watch my son shoot his shotgun.”

Lambert’s parents, Loretta McGee and John Hodges, still live in Dublin. “I still have a lot of friends and family that I’ve grown up with and known forever and it’s nice to be able to come back and still get to do the everyday with them,” she said.

Throughout her life, Lambert has drawn inspiration from her family. “My husband and I have a lot of the same interests as far as being scientists and things like that,” she said. “He’s always pushed me to finish school and go do what I wanted to do, whether it was working in a lab or moving to education. And my parents were very supportive, they just kind of let me live my dreams and do what I wanted to do.”

She’s also kept up relationships with some of the teachers that inspired her throughout her education. “If you’ve got those special teachers that you think a lot of and that have taught you a lot, keep them around as you go through college,” she said. “They’ve invested so much time with you and seen you grow over the years, and they can help guide you in the things that you do after you graduate.”

Her advice to Dublin graduates is to try different things until they find what they enjoy. “Do the things that you love to do, because when you get up every morning to go to your job, you want it to be one that makes you happy,” she said.

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.