After 33 years of teaching at Bloomington High School South, recently retired Catharine Rademacher is traveling to Peru after being awarded the Road Scholar’s Educator Legacy Award. But the trip won’t happen until after the school year ends since she’s back at school — substitute teaching at Bloomington South.
“I just can’t get enough of it,” Rademacher said recently during a break between classes at the high school. That’s why she’s long-term subbing. “So, yeah, I’m in school. I’m here through the end of the year” teaching freshman English.
Her nine-day trip in September is a solo venture to Peru’s Sacred Valley, Lima and Machu Picchu, with Roads Scholar granting her a $5,000 voucher for the trip.
Known to many of her current and former pupils as C-Rad, Rademacher retired in 2025 after decades of teaching English, speech and theater, including Theatre South, which produces several plays and musicals each year. More than 50 nominations for the Road Scholar award were submitted by students, teachers and friends.
Some of those students may have been ones who traveled to various places with Rademacher who states, “I’m a big travel girl, so I’ve been all over the world.” That includes trips to Italy, France, Germany, England and New York City with students, as well as treks to Guatemala, Poland and Japan.
Reflecting over her past trips, Rademacher said one of the most memorable was traveling with Holocaust survivor Eva Mozes Kor, who led more than 30 trips to the site of her imprisonment in Poland, where she would describe her experiences at the camp and the forgiveness she later gave her captors.
“The trip with Eva Kor, it’s just untouchable,” Rademacher said, describing how the group walked around the former concentration camp. Another favorite trip was traveling to Japan where Rademacher was able to practice noh, one of the oldest forms of Japanese theater.
The Road Scholar trip isn’t the first education-related trip for Rademacher. She received two teacher creativity grants from the Lily Endowment. The first time Rademacher spent a month in London and Stratford-upon-Avon studying Shakespeare; the second trip was to the Holy Land, including Egypt.
The Road Scholar trip to Peru includes visiting many sacred places, something that intrigues Rademacher, who said she’s fascinated by civilizations that have disappeared. “I just really like to get lost and submersed in another place,” she said.
Road Scholar is a not-for-profit organization that specializes in educational travel, typically for people over the age of 50. It offers trips at various prices around the world as a way for people to learn, discover and travel.
Contact Carol Kugler at ckugler@heraldt.com.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Bloomington South teacher finds way to Peru through an educator award
Reporting by Carol Kugler, The Herald-Times / The Herald-Times
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
