Margaret Basinger began teaching just as local schools were desegregating. Salisbury’s black schools closed, one by one, and their students and staffs had to pick up and move.

In a career Basinger left last week as a counselor at East Rowan High School, she never stopped coping with the conflicts teen-agers encounter. But from the tears shed when a student or teacher dies to the hugs when someone wins a scholarship, she’ll tell you she has savored every minute.

“I would pay to have had my jobs,” she says as she sits on a bench in the school courtyard while the sun slips behind the roof of her office.

Basinger, 54, has dealt with emotions — different ones each day.

Her first job was teaching journalism at Knox Middle School in 1969 — just as Salisbury’s black schools were closing.

“It was really terrible when I started,” the Huntersville native recalls. “The black schools really felt like they had lost their identity. But those years were so gratifying because everybody worked together to try to make integration work.”

Randy Rice moved to Knox Middle that year from Monroe Middle School and was in Basinger’s class. Racial tension was stressful that year, he recalls, but black students were glad to have a school newspaper and student council. Basinger was adviser for both groups.

“When we got in there, she held us together,” says Rice, who continues to send Basinger flowers and cards. “She understood everything we were going through... She was the best teacher I’ve ever had.”

The decision to teach journalism seemed natural. Basinger’s mother writes for the Lake Norman Times. Her father, Dick Banks, reviewed music, movies and art for the Charlotte Observer in a career that spanned 41 years. He died two years ago, at age 87.

“When I was coming along, women had three choices,” Basinger said. “They could be a secretary, a nurse or a teacher.”

Basinger met her future husband, Dale, her first day on the job. He coached and taught history at Knox Middle.

Though she enjoyed teaching journalism, Basinger found her real joy in listening to children talk about their troubles. So she went on to counsel students at several elementary schools in Salisbury — Isenburg, Overton, Wiley and Henderson.

“I just was drawn to the profession because I noticed how much students needed someone to talk to,” she says. “Everybody needs a good listener.”

When she settled at East Rowan High in 1989, she had to adjust to more than older students. The city and county school systems had just merged. And in contrast to the city schools of her past, East Rowan was the least racially diverse of the county’s six high schools - 94 percent white.

“I was treated like a leper because I had come from the city,” she remembers.

But East Rowan, where Basinger has overseen four other counselors, has gained a reputation for the scholarships its seniors earn each year. Basinger says that East Rowan’s seniors net a total of somewhere around $1 million a year in scholarships.

Last year, two students there won the Morehead Scholarship – a full ticket to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. One of them was one of Basinger’s two sons, Robert. The other, John, is attending Campbell University’s law school.

Helping students obtain scholarships and encountering former students have given Basinger some of her happiest times. Steve Blount, chairman of the Rowan County Board of Commissioners, is one of her former students.

“I think everybody liked her because she could understand what we were going through,” says Blount, who was in Basinger’s journalism class her first year. “It was a tough year. But we remained friends through the years.”

Basinger has written letters of recommendation for jobs and colleges. She’s talked with parents about their children’s careers. She’s also spoken with parents who think she’s their child’s full-time therapist.

“When parents tell me they can’t do anything with their children,” she says, “I tell them, ‘Well I wonder who can.’ Many of them are scared their children will not love them if they set standards.

“And therefore, the children rule. And that is a recipe for disaster... Don’t be afraid to parent. Don’t be afraid to set standards and rules.”

Basinger knows she can’t completely commit to one student and tell everyone else to take a number.

“A lot of parents are looking for additional help beyond what we typically offer,” she says. “We aren’t therapists. We’re Band-Aid counselors.”

That doesn’t bother her.

“I’m a generalist,” she says. “I like wearing all the hats.”

Basinger has been there through the chronic illnesses and suspensions. When a rumor about a student having suicidal thoughts emerges, for instance, she might spend the rest of the day on that.

Her most traumatic times are when students or teachers die. She’ll never forget Brad Patrick, a 15-year-old student who died after a drunken driver struck the car he was in head-on at the corner of Faith Road and Gold Hill Drive more than 11 years ago.

One thing Basinger probably won’t miss about her job is the 12 boxes on the floor of her office that were crammed last week with end-of-grade tests.

Like counselors at other schools, Basinger has felt the pressure to organize and distribute a growing number of tests the state requires. Counselors have less time to work with students on problems, she says, because they must shuffle an increasing load of paperwork.

“There is no guidance counselor who wants to be a testing coordinator,” she says. “It’s not what we were hired to do.”

Basinger is looking forward to more time in her perennial garden and a trip to New Orleans this summer. But she won’t be gone long.

“I wouldn’t live anywhere else,” she says. “I have too many friends here. To me, relationships are the very most important thing.”

And she admits she’ll never really retire.

Basinger works out and kick boxes each morning at the new East Rowan YMCA, where she’s on the board of directors. She encounters other members there who share their problems.

“I tell people, ‘If pain could hum, the sound would be so deafening we couldn’t hear each other,’” she says. “As long as there is pain we’ll need people who will listen.

“I know I’m never going to truly retire.”

Contact Brad A. Hodges at 704-797-4266 and bhodges@salisburypost.com .