When Cheryl Bates started teaching math at Tomlin Middle School, her fellow teacher John Switch noticed her intelligence immediately.
“She was a whiz at math,” Switch said. “She liked one-upping her students.”
Switch and Mrs. Bates taught at Tomlin together before Switch retired in 2005. They grew from coworkers to friends and eventually married Feb. 29, 2008 — a leap year.
“We wanted to make it special,” Switch said.
He joked with his wife that they would only have to celebrate every few years, but she wouldn’t have it.
“She’d say we would celebrate it on two days: Feb. 28 and the first of March,” Switch said.
Mrs. Bates, 53, died Jan. 12.
An alumna of Plant City High School where she was a Mathlete, she went on to graduate from the University of South Florida and become an educator. She passed on her love of numbers to her students at Tomlin Middle School, Plant City High School and Strawberry Crest High School. She also taught for one year in North Carolina.
“She loved to teach, she loved her job,” Switch said. “When she’d teach a lesson and students would grasp the ideas, she knew she reached some of them.”
Beyond the walls of a classroom, she was adventurous. She loved attending rock concerts, especially KISS.
“We saw a lot of groups together,” Switch said. “We saw The Who twice together.”
The pair also enjoyed traveling and going on cruises. On one Memorial Day weekend, Mrs. Bates insisted on driving to Key West after a full day of teaching. She drove all night with Switch in the passenger seat, and they finally arrived at 7 a.m. They waited three hours for a room to open up.
“That was a good one,” Switch said.
She enjoyed geocaching. She and Switch once found a coin from Luxembourg at Daytona Beach Shores. They also found one travel bug, a dog tag with a tracking number used in geocaching.
But even Mrs. Bates had her limits when it came to adventure. She was terrified of snakes and would insist that Switch enter forest-filled areas first.
Once, she wasn’t so lucky. She stepped outside and saw a black snake in the lawn. She fainted.
“She screamed and passed out,” Switch said. “I thought it was funny.”
Most recently, Mrs. Bates was a teacher at Strawberry Crest High School.
“She came to us from Plant City High School when the school opened in 2009,” Crest’s principal, David Brown, said. “The math department is very tight. She touched a lot of kids.”
Her lasting impression on her students is evident. Many penned tributes to her, mentioning her helpful nature and endless wit.
“I loved Mrs. Bates. She was kind of like my mentor in my senior year,” Genesis Cancio wrote. “I was struggling a lot. Her just listening helped and her randomly getting me food or clothes had made me felt like somebody actually cares. She was such a wonderful woman … she will have a place in my heart.”
Other students mentioned how proud Mrs. Bates was of their continued success.
“Mrs. Bates was not only a wonderful teacher, but a great person as well,” Elizabeth Aguilera wrote. “She always wanted the best for her students and wanted them to succeed. At my high school graduation she cried and hugged me.”
Mrs. Bates is survived by her husband, John Switch; daughter, Jennifer Moores (Scott), of Riverview; parents, Richard and Donna Kincade; sister, Tina Johnson (Mike), of Lakeland; grandchildren, Henley and Alden Moores; nephews, Zachary, Tyler and Mason; and dachshunds, Dottie and Bailey.
She was preceded in death by her daughter, Heather Hall.
A celebration of life for Mrs. Bates was held Saturday, Jan. 16. In lieu of flowers, the family has asked for plants as a lasting tribute.
Contact Emily Topper at etopper@plantcityobserver.com.