Member
Term: 2021 – 2025

Jennifer and her family love Creede and the area. She and her husband, Shane, and two kids vacationed annually to Creede starting in 2006. After raising their children in the small town of Vernon Texas, the couple took advantage of a business opportunity and moved to Creede in the Spring of 2019 as full-time residents to own and operate Creede Snowshoe Lodge. Their son, Truman, is currently finishing college at West Texas A & M in Canyon, TX. Their daughter, Emily, now resides in Creede after marrying a Creede native and graduating from Tarleton State University in Stephenville, TX.

Before marrying and moving to Texas, Jennifer attended Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, AZ earning a Physical Science degree and obtaining her teaching credentials. She taught high school physics and environmental science in Prescott, AZ for a few years before embarking on a 23-year career of teaching at Vernon Middle School in Vernon, TX where she and Shane settled to raise a family. Although the subject of science was Jennifer’s first love and she taught science most of her teaching career, she grew to appreciate the opportunity to engage middle school students in the pursuit of excellence that would follow them throughout
their lives. The last three years of her teaching career she taught the elective AVID, which stands for Advancement Via Individual Determination that gave students exposure to critical thinking and organizational strategies as well as Socratic tutoring to ensure success in their post-secondary education endeavors.

Although Jennifer preferred working with students, she served on many district and campus committees during her tenure at VMS giving her insight to the pressures and stresses that can be felt by administrators and down the chain to teachers in the classroom. She believes young people deserve high expectations be put on them along with the support to meet those expectations and would commonly say to students, “Do your best! You deserve it!”

Email Jennifer Castleberry

Creede School District