After coaching Page Middle School cheerleaders for 33 years, Wyvonnia "Bunny" Carter is leaving the pompoms behind. The veteran special education teacher is not retiring but rather giving up her after-school coaching commitment to pursue other interests.

Carter was born in Missouri to Harold D. Jones Jr. and Maedean Jones but said her father soon brought the family to Gloucester. The clan included her brother, Dr. Harold Jones III, who is now the head physician at Eastern State Hospital.

Carter said her grandfather could not pronounce his young granddaughter’s given name when the two were introduced. "He looked out the door and saw a rabbit. It’s been Bunny ever since," she said of the nickname that most people know her by.

Carter’s father had attended Gloucester Training School and Carter was sent to its successor institution, T.C. Walker School, where she met future husband, Anthony T. Carter, in ninth grade. The next year she moved to...