Teachers paid an important role in my life, as I’m sure they did in many of your lives.  Here are a few:

Miss Wolleson.  My kindergarten teacher, most memorable for me being surprised that she spanked kids.  When I shared this shocking news to my parents, I was informed that if I ever got spanked at school, I’d be spanked at home, too!  Yikes! (I never got spanked at school.)

Mrs. Reusch.  Second grade.  She died earlier this year.  She was incredibly kind and kind of reminded me of my grandmother (on my father’s side).

Mrs. Koenig.  Fourth grade.  A first year teacher who I and many others thought was the greatest.

Mrs Coacher.  Seventh grade English. She wrote “A” on one chalkboard and “lot” on the other chalkboard the first day of school.  Then she explained that those two words never, ever went together when writing about “a lot” of anything.  That had a powerful impact on me and many others — as they testified when we learned of her death earlier this year.

Mr. Schmidtke.  Seventh grade reading.  Our classroom was right outside the school cafeteria, and “You’re so Vain” was blaring out the jukebox every day for months, and our class was held in the lunch hour block.  One day, he asked us all if we knew what “vain” meant.  None of us knew.  He taught a lesson in knowing the words we’re chanting in songs and what they mean.

Mr. Huber.  A first year teacher who was a last minute hire to teach my 8th grade history class when my planned teacher died the week before school started.  He’d done his student teaching in our school district the year before and rented a room in a house across the street from us, so I sort of “knew” him.  He called me a “radical” when we were learning about political systems.  I doubt that would fit today.

Mr. Kerr.  High school biology, chemistry, and advanced biology.  He challenged me every single day but also got me a year long pass out of last hour study hall so I could work in his back room doing anything he needed done or just to hang out there if he didn’t need anything.  I’d worked really hard on my biology notebook one grading period.  He only gave me a “B.”  I asked him about it, he said it could have been better.  The next grading period, I typed the whole notebook and exercised great care with the drawings, and it earned an “A.”

Mr. Rose.  Junior and senior English.  Rose’s Rules and his reading list were key factors in me testing out of Freshman College English.

There are more, but these are few who made the greatest impact on my life.