Kao has never looked back since becoming a teacher at Sinsing Elementary School in her native Jinfong Township at the age of 18, but the time has finally arrived for her to exit the stage that has meant so much to her.

Also retiring will be Lu Shien-nan, the principal of Sanchien Elementary School, who was one of Kao's students in 1962 -- the year she began teaching at Sinsing Elementary shortly after graduating from "Taitung Normal School."

At the only school in the small township, almost every township resident was once her student. Kao even taught her own daughters and granddaughter as well as three generations of one family.

"I treated all of them equally," Kao said.

"She is our mom, co-worker and grandma, " explained Cheng Hui-feng, director of the Sinsing Elementary School.

"She is truly one of a kind," hailed Sinsing Elementary principal Cheng Hen-wen. "There will never be anyone again who will be able to serve so many years at the same school as she has."

After the normal education system, responsible for producing Taiwan's teachers, was upgraded to the higher university level, normal university graduates are now generally at least 22 years old, making a repeat of Kao's career a near impossibility.

For Kao to be admitted to her county's normal school in the late 1950s was truly a feat in itself. It was a "great honor" for her tribe and the underprivileged township, which is secluded in a mountainous area in sparsely populated southeastern Taiwan and did not have any resources in that underdeveloped era.

Recalling her long-term devotion to grassroots education in Jinfong Township, Kao said her most unforgettable experience was the so called "lunch box episode."

Because many parents of her students were poor, some of them would knock on her door early in the morning and ask her to help them nourish their children, Kao said. By lunch time, the entire class, including Kao, would have similar lunch boxes, she remembered.

Apart from educating young children, Kao also enthusiastically promoted learning and knowledge among adult Paiwan men and women.

In 1992, she was cited by the Ministry of Education as the "outstanding teacher" of the year in honor of her life long contribution to the indigenous Paiwan people.

Although Kao will officially retire on August 1, township residents have decided to host a big feast for Kao on Wednesday to express their deepest gratitude to a person so dear and so precious to them.

"She is the pride of our tribe and our town," township representative Hu Chao-ching said.