Good Mornin’! Good Mornin’!
With this being Teacher Appreciation Week, I’d like to take a few words to thank those who put up with me in their classrooms the past few decades.
Many of them – from kindergarten to college to life – have all molded our minds into something hopefully good for society and our fellow man.
In no particular order of priority or preference I’d have to mention Mrs. Powers and Mrs. Leonard from the Little Red Schoolhouse in Greenwood, Mrs. Dave Woods, Mr. Will Jacobs Jr., (Aunt) Tommie Logan, Mrs. Lynn Arrington (now Moore), Mrs. Kathryn Garrard, Mrs. George Hart, Coach Paul Ervin, Mrs. Lynn Delas, Mrs. Genyth Baird, Mrs. Sarah Ann Fletcher, Mrs. Marilyn Dattel (now Alford), Miss Laney Wooten and Mr. Jim Pratt are a few that kept my attention and got some facts and knowledge in the nooks and crannies of my brain.
I reckon each one had a special nudge for me to find my talents and add to my abilities and hone my skills as a writer.
For some reason as a kid I put an “S” on everything, so I spent a year at “Speech School” getting a kindergarten education and getting that special problem mended.
These days my voice is a huge part of my career as a writer with interviewing. Mrs. Woods taught me how to read and write and count and follow the adventures of Dick and Jane and sometimes Spot.
Mr. Jacobs was a heck of a principal who always opened any assembly quoting scripture and having us repeat it and he was one heck of a math teacher as well. Aunt Tom read us the story of Where the Red Fern Grows bringing the story to life. Mrs. Garrard tried her best to get science facts and data into me and Mrs. Hart was a stickler for all things English and even etiquette as she took my favorite yellow John Deere hat off my head in the CDA hallway and kept if for about a week to teach me a lesson.
Coach Ervin taught me how to win and be a team player in every sport and put up with us in Driver’s Ed pulling his own “brake” pranks from his teaching spot in the passenger seat.
Mrs. Delas, Mrs. Baird and Mrs. Dattel all poured in more English that must have found enough room in my brain to influence my writing skills.
Two special ladies – Mrs. Arrington (Moore) and Mrs. Fletcher dug deep and unleashed my limited singing abilities and in doing so uncorked my acting skills that went with them.
They saw something in my “pitchy” baritone that they felt they could use in choir and madrigals and on theatrical stages both school and church.
Miss Laney Wooten and Mr. Jim Pratt put me under their tutelage to teach and finesse my journalistic abilities into something that would resemble a career.
From print to radio to television and now Social Media, the things I’ve learned from each teacher along the way have made me into a multi-dimensional photographer/writer/journalist/Public Address/Entertainer I try to be each day.
Thank you, teachers. Each and every one.
