Executive Director: Linda LoBue

Linda was born in Indiana and feels a deep alliance with her Midwestern roots. Her family relocated to the state of Washington where she finished high school and completed her undergraduate degree at Central Washington University with a major in Special Education and minors in Spanish and Latin American Studies.

Upon graduation she joined the Peace Corps and headed to South America to serve the special needs children of Ecuador. In Quito she started her family, became biliterate in Spanish, taught in an international school, earned a Master of Arts in Education degree with an emphasis in elementary curriculum and developed a deep understanding and appreciation of cultural diversity.

Shortly after returning home with her son Fernando, she earned a School Administration degree and was appointed principal at John S. Park Elementary School in the Clark County School District in Nevada where she pioneered a successful two-way Spanish language program for the school’s primary grades.

Seven years later she was appointed principal of Estes McDoniel Elementary School in Henderson, still part of the Clark County School District. At this award winning school she secured a $340,000 state grant to facilitate the development of a Spanish immersion program along with an integrated global studies curriculum.

In 2008, Linda and her husband Jim moved to the charming town of Auburn in northern California. Between shifts of planting and weeding the backyard garden beds, she co-authored with Stacie Farin a parent guidebook to support beginning readers. She later published a similar book and DVD program in Spanish for Spanish-speaking parents trying to help their children become proficient readers in English.

The Sight Word Busters volunteer program was conceived and designed by Linda in the fall of 2010. She developed the Buster Shuffle, a simple teaching strategy that volunteers would use to help students master sight words. She trained her first group of 13 Sight Word Busters and together they began their service in three primary classrooms at Rock Creek Elementary School in Auburn. By 2016 as a result of the success and popularity of this program, it grew to include more than 300 trained volunteers working in 96 classrooms helping 2350 little ones master the all-important high frequency words.

On May 25, 2016, Sight Word Busters received the official IRS notification for tax exempt nonprofit status. An amazingly talented group of individuals was invited to form the first Board of Directors, and Board President Linda now stands in awe and appreciation at the willingness of the board members and the hundreds of volunteers so willing to embrace and promote our organization’s early literacy mission.