ANDERSON, Ind. — Bob Ivy is a living example of the Mark Twain quote: “Find a job you enjoy doing, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”

To celebrate his 90th birthday, Ivy returned to a classroom at Valley Grove Elementary School in Anderson, Indiana, to teach fourth-grade math.

Ivy worked 44 years as a regular teacher and was a substitute teacher for another 20 years.

Born in Kansas, Ivy enlisted in the U.S. Navy during World War II and started teaching in 1949 in a rural one-room school house in Oklahoma.

During his time in the Navy, Ivy worked as a radio operator on the USS Watts in the Pacific and was in Japan following the end of the war.

“I wasn’t tough enough for the Army or Marines, so I enlisted in the Navy,” he said with a laugh.

His grandson, Corey Davidson, said Ivy moved to Indiana after marrying a woman from Virginia. The Hoosier State was located midway between their two families.

Ivy taught math and science and was a basketball coach for 40 years.

“I never did want to quit teaching,” he said. “I love the kids and I love to teach.

“I just thought this would be an interesting thing to do,” he said of teaching at the age of 90.

Ivy maintains a keen sense of humor, telling the Anderson, Indiana Herald Bulletin that he’s had a few things happen over the years, including a class where a student had a laser gun.

“I really enjoy teaching,” he said. “God gave me a gift of love of the kids. So I adopted all of them. So I have lots of grandkids.”

Ivy said his first idea was to be an electrical engineer.

“But God had other ideas,” he said. “It was his decision that I would be a teacher. He gave me a special love for kids.”

He has received lots of notes from students and people he worked with over the years.

“In my last class, the notes from the students — the one word that came through was ‘love,’” he said.

Ivy said his doctor predicted he would live to be 100 if he kept exercising, riding a stationary bicycle 20 or 30 minutes at a time.

Jan Koeninger, principal at Valley Grove, said that, if she is still at the school then, Ivy could come back and teach at the age of 100.

“I’ve known Bob for quite a few years. He subbed out here a lot,” she said. “He’s always done a great job in the classroom, so I was thrilled that he wanted to come back and do this. I totally respect that he enjoys teaching and wants to come back and do it.”

Koeninger said teachers never know the impact they have on students in later life.

“The students are excited to meet him and for him to teach them a little bit of math,” she said.

In fourth-grade teacher Heather Smith’s classroom, Ivy quietly walked among the students asking them about their project on different animals and then started teaching math.

“It’s amazing,” Smith, a third-year teacher, said of Ivy coming back to teach. “It’s really neat, with all the issues you hear about in teaching, that someone has continued to come back and give you that hope. This is still where his heart is and where he wants to be.”

de la Bastide writes for the Anderson, Indiana Herald Bulletin.