Bath, NY (WENY) – A book nook dedication held Thursday evening honored a former teacher who gave more than 20 years of her life helping students learn.

Karin Machuga passed away in May from ALS after being diagnosed last year in September. Colleagues of Karin's felt compelled to do something in her memory.

“Karin has always been a real proactive literacy teacher and when we had all this money come in we tried to decide what could we do with this that would make a memorial where people would remember her and we came up as a group as her friends about building a book nook,” Said Kathy Partridge, retired teacher who taught with Karin.

The book nook is a castle that students can read inside of when they come into the library. Karin's portrait hangs on the side of the bookshelf that is filled with Ted Arnold books, her favorite author. Ever since Karin was a child, teaching has been her passion.

“She was the one that we played teacher and student all of the time, and she was always the teacher. So she was destined from the very beginning to be a teacher and I think over the years it's shown that that's exactly what she should be doing,” Said Theresa Townsend, Karin's sister.

Her teachings rubbed off on her students and now one former student is continuing Karin's lessons to students of her own.

“Even to this day I always say that Karin was my favorite teacher, she's just one that left a mark on me, left a mark on my heart and it means so much to me. I'll never really say that I am replacing her because I still look at that classroom as her classroom, so I just want to do everything that I can to continue on what she did for her students,” Said Alexa Sherwood, Elementary Teacher at the Primary School.