From broken feet and a major knee injury to hitting deer on the highway, Powell High School staff and students are familiar with what is known as the English Teacher Curse. Many other terrible incidents have happened to other teachers in the school, but English teachers in particular may have had the worst luck of all.

Out of the six Powell High School English teachers, five have endured awful occurrences. Teachers Mr. Hans Hawley, Mrs. Amy Moore, and Ms. Bailey Jackson have all experienced some not-so-fun injuries. Through all the injuries and hard times the English teachers have had, they have found ways to persevere.

“In June of 2024, I broke my foot,” Mr. Hawley said. “It was just a small pop while I was walking. I just thought it was a sprain, so I kept walking on it for several more weeks. But eventually my foot and ankle swelled up like a football.”

Although Mr. Hawley’s injury just happened to be a shocking bodily reflex, he still made it a priority to be at school for his students, making sure he found ways around the challenges he faced.

“I had to quit working at the pool as a lifeguard, and I had to sit at my desk with my foot elevated almost all day,” Mr. Hawley said. “Getting around to students’ desks to check on kids, or help them with stuff was impossible.”

The challenges Mr. Hawley faced made him recognize that the simple tasks in life were much more difficult with his broken foot. As a result of this injury, Mr. Hawley now has some trouble when he goes shoe shopping.

“I have to buy size 11 shoes for my left foot, and size 13 shoes for my right foot,” Mr. Hawley said.  “But with all that, I’m more grateful than ever that I can walk again.”

But one English teacher with a broken foot was not enough to satisfy the English Teacher Curse. So the curse made its way to Mrs. Moore next.

“While in Vegas for a summer teacher training, Mrs. [JoEllen] Varian, Mrs. [Buffy] Allred, and I were returning from dinner in the dark,” Mrs. Moore said. “I was walking between the two of them, yet I was the one to tumble into a pothole there on the Strip, injuring my foot.”

Now that two English teachers have experienced a foot injury, they have both gotten to know what the healing process looks like.

“I spent several months visiting the podiatrist and tromping around in a boot the following semester,” Mrs. Moore said. “Is this related to teaching the Scottish play every year? I don’t know, but I’m not a fan of the English Teacher Curse.”

With most of the English teachers having injuries in past years, yet another teacher has been on a rocky road with her knee. Ms. Jackson is currently recovering from her third knee surgery after she slipped and fell on a pool deck in Riverton last year.

“When I fell, I was weirdly calm, and my first thought was, ‘Oh, no, I can’t let the girls see my knee,’” Ms. Jackson said. “This is my third knee surgery, and I am feeling that I’m healing better than the last two surgeries I’ve had.”

With this tragic fall, her patella ended up shattering into 15 pieces, making it so the doctor had to reconstruct her whole kneecap. As if these personal injuries were not injurious enough, yet another teacher has had bad luck– this time with wildlife.

“I hit a deer almost a year ago on my way to Cody from Powell,” Mrs. Varian said. “The airbags went off, and it was scary. I had black eyes from the airbags and bruises on my legs.”

Many people who live in Wyoming experience incidents with deer and many other animals crossing the road. Most of the time, these collisions happen when people don’t have the best weather, making it hard for them to see what may be in their path.

“It was a dark and stormy morning, and I was coming up the hill right as you get into Cody,” Mrs. Varian said. “When I was coming down it, I couldn’t really see anything, and there was a deer standing in the road, and I hit it.”

Only one English teacher remains unaffected, and that’s Mrs. Tracy McArthur.

“I feel pretty blessed that I haven’t broken my knee or hit a deer with my car or had to get surgery on anything,” Mrs. McArthur said. “I knock on wood when something happens to somebody else and stay healthy.”

Whether related or unrelated to the curse, the high school has recently been in search of a new English teacher. Mr. Logan Burns left unexpectedly so that he could go and live with the rest of his family in Maryland.

“It was kind of a surprise that he left so suddenly,” Mrs. McArthur said. “But we have hired a new teacher, and she is hopefully going to start on Oct. 27, and I’m really excited.”

This story was originally published on The Prowl on October 30, 2025.