Dionne Tarpenning (4th grade) was born and raised in Southern California. Growing up, she was a dancer, singer, pianist, and guitarist. She attended Brigham Young University, BYU-Hawaii, and studied abroad in Spain, where she worked on a minor in Spanish. Dionne also lived in Italy for 1 1/2 years and became fluent in Italian. She loves to travel; her destinations include Israel, Turkey, Egypt, Greece, England, France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Morocco, Mexico and Canada. She finds traveling to be most fun when she can bring along any or all of her five children.

Dionne has taught Spanish in schools since 1993. She taught Chapter I in the Alpine School District where she worked with students who were below grade level in reading and math. She has been a Cubmaster for over 4 years and loves to get silly with them. Her favorite subjects are history/geography, Spanish, music, and P.E.; she considers it a great day when she can combine all of these subjects into one lesson.