Distinguished Alumni Elizabeth Billman broadens teaching outreach as principal

Thompson Elementary School Elizabeth Billman visits with her students over lunch in the IU Kokomo Art Gallery.

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Elizabeth Tocco Billman enrolled at Indiana University Kokomo in the late 1960s because she wanted to be an educator. “I was married, had two kids, and wanted to further my education and my opportunities,” she says. “The neighborhood kids always congregated at our house, and I thought, ‘Hey, I really like this.’ ”

She completed a bachelor’s degree in elementary education in 1972, graduating with high distinction, and began what has become a distinguished career. She taught fourth graders and then sixth graders at Washington Township Elementary School in Valparaiso and Thompson Elementary School in Walton. During evenings and summers, she earned a master’s degree in elementary education from IUPUI and a principal’s license.

After 22 years of teaching, “I wanted an opportunity to interact with and have a positive impact on even more children than the ones in my classroom,” Billman says. Her search for a principal’s position coincided with an opening at Thompson, a K–6 school with about 500 students. She applied and was hired in 1994, becoming the first female administrator in Cass County’s Southeastern School Corporation.

Under Billman’s guidance, Thompson received an “exemplary” rating from the Indiana Department of Education in 2006 and a Healthy Hoosier School Award—Gold Level in 2005 for creating a healthy environment for students.

“She always puts the children first,” says John Bevan, Ph.D., superintendent of Southeastern School Corporation. Each day, Billman greets her students in the morning and goes to the cafeteria during the first graders’ lunch to become acquainted with her newest full-day students.

She takes great pride in her current and former students, many of whom still live in Cass County. “I say that I’ve been ‘lapped’—I now have children of parents that I had as students,” she says. “It’s really neat because I have long-term relationships with these families, so I’m really able to appreciate them and work with them.”

Billman also works ardently in the community. She is on the board of the Cass County Community Foundation, whose assets grew more than $2.5 million during her recent terms as president and now total more than $10 million. She is a charter member of the IU Kokomo chapter of Pi Lambda Theta, and she has served on the boards and in leadership positions for local organizations such as the League of Women Voters, the Delta Kappa Gamma Society International, and the YMCA/YWCA. A former adjunct faculty member in graduate education at IU Kokomo, she is a state-certified mentor for beginning principals.

“Liz is one of the quiet soldiers,” says Deanna Crispen, executive director of the Cass County Community Foundation and president of the IU Kokomo Alumni Association. “She has a tremendous servant’s heart. We are a better community because of her.”

Billman’s students think a lot of her, too. Maci Maupin, a fifth grader at Thompson, nominated Billman as her “local hero” in a competition this spring. Maci says that Billman teaches students “to be respectful and to be good citizens.”

“I think we all have an obligation to try to make the world a better place,” Billman says. “Just as in the classroom a teacher wants to see every child do his or her best, I encourage anyone I come in contact with to do their best, to try to be their best.”