Jacquelyn Speight is a history and humanities teacher at Fossil Ridge High School. Speight was born in Wyoming, but lived in California, Oregon, and Washington D.C. She has always wanted to be a New Yorker and her dream is to be on SNL. Speight has two older sisters, three step-brothers and one son, Maximilian Jamal Satchel Lee Speight. The people she is most close with in her family are her mom and definitely her son. Her favorite thing about her family is how she and her son have an amazing relationship of openness, adventureness, faith and fun.

Growing up, Speight was always the funny friend and she loved making people laugh. She even got nominated class clown. In her teen years she described herself as funny, shy and sometimes misunderstood. In high school Speight was a part of National Honor Society, Art Club, French Club, and tennis. In college she was a part of Amnesty International and Stand Up Comedy. In her high school and college years, Speight loved how she remained true to her beliefs and stayed away from drugs. Her favorite teacher growing up was her Spanish teacher, who also taught her mom. He taught her how important it is to respect and learn from other people’s cultures, languages, and customs. In her class he stated, “A woman is a biological fact, but a lady is an attribute and Speight is the only lady in this class.” She will carry this with her forever.

Speight’s favorite previous occupation was sports journalism, and she misses working there. She was also a costume singing telegram, bus driver for inmates at the Sheriff’s Department, ski chairlift operator, writer/journalist for Thrasher Magazine, Greenpeace, and legislative correspondent for U.S. Senator Alan Simpson. Speight started teaching because she lost someone really close to her due to a problem that began in high school, and lead to an overdose. This experience pushed her to try and help young people make better decisions and not get addicted to harmful substances. She also likes how young people teach her new things all the time.

Speight’s goal as a teacher is to help students become critical thinkers who have compassion for others, so that our future is in good hands. Her favorite class to teach is American Humanities. She created the class to show how the U.S. changed after World War II through social media and social trends. She hopes to teach journalism someday since she got her degree in the field and worked in journalism for fifteen years. Her favorite thing about teaching is learning about life from a young person’s perspective. She is close with her students, and knows what they do in their life outside of school. Speight believes students view her as someone who truly cares about each and everyone of them. She truly cares about teaching our country’s past in a fair, objective way by sharing stories in history that have been left out or ignored.

In her free time Speight loves to play outside with her son and she loves doing activities that include water or outside time. Speight’s proudest accomplishment is her son and keeping in contact with former students and getting to see their accomplishments. She considers some of her strengths to be being an activist and sticking up for underdogs. Some of her weakness are lacking organization skills, technology, and needing to relax more. Some of her goals is to become a professional comedian and a fashion influencer. Some things many people might not know about her is that her faith defines her and she has interviewed a lot of famous sports stars. Her desire is to keep learning, traveling, and appreciating people’s own stories.