Lana Fuller spends most of the year teaching, but she doesn’t take a break from children when the summer arrives.

During the summer, Fuller continues to work with children as an afternoon director at Purks YMCA day camp.

“That entails being over the counselors that are here for the kids and making sure everyone is here doing what they’re supposed to do in a safe and fun manner,” she said. “This is my first year to do it, and I love it.”

Fuller said she works at the YMCA at night sometimes during the year, which led to her taking the position as an afternoon director.

“I love kids, and I love to be in charge and pick the activities that they do,” she said. “It’s just fun to make their day a little bit more fun.”

Fuller, who has taught for 25 years, has spent the past five years teaching at Dana Road Elementary School, where she teaches second and third grade gifted students.

Fuller has spent even more time with the Vicksburg Warren School District; a product of the system herself, Fuller is an alumna of Warren Central High School.

“In third grade I knew I was going to be a teacher,” she said. “I feel like it was from God. I just knew in third grade that that’s what I was supposed to do.”

Fuller said she can remember playing school every day as early as 8 years of age.

Fuller went back to school about nine years ago because she felt she needed a change.

“Both of my boys were in the gifted program, and I saw their thinking patterns were different,” she said. “I wanted to get clued in to the way my children thought and the way they do things.”

Fuller added as a teacher of the gifted she has more freedom in the way she teaches, a liberty that has been restricted in regular classrooms.

“We used to have lots of freedom and could teach anything the way we wanted to teach it as long as it was learned, so to me, education was exciting,” she said.

“It was exciting to the kids because I could take the way they learn the best and teach it the way I wanted to because I was a trusted professional educator.”

Gifted is done by teaching what interests the students, Fuller said, which is what she enjoys most about teaching.