One child, one teacher, one book, and one pen can change the world.
Malala Yousafzai
The Who’s Who of Who Helped In My Academic Journey
Here are the teachers who were really memorable in the many different schools thanks to the itinerant lifestyle of this Army brat leading to graduation. There’s no way I can properly give a shout out to all of the people across several states who made that journey worth taking so if one of those teachers happens upon this page and doesn’t see their name here, please know that you were still loved and appreciated! π
Mrs Lemonds – 1st Grade (Morganton Road Elementary — Fayetteville, NC)
I’ll confess I had to consult my Biological Archival Memory System (otherwise known as my sister Meghann!) because whilst I could see her in my head and I could hear her voice, I could not for the life of me remember Mrs Lemonds’ name until Meghann finally ended several hours of miserable frustration of searching the memory banks between my ears.
Not only was Mrs Lemonds amongst the nicest and most kindly teachers I’d ever known who had to really work at being cross with even the most unruly student, she had this delightful habit of intentionally requesting siblings of students that she’d taught be assigned to her class.
Because of the age difference between me and my brother (11.5 years) and sister (15.5 years) and a different father, Mrs Lemonds unintentionally satisfied that little quirk of hers when Ben was assigned to her class. What was truly funny was she recognised my mother but she couldn’t exactly place her finger on it until Mom told her that I was his older brother she’d taught many years before.
The delight in her eyes and the laughter when that penny dropped was truly a sight to behold.
Whilst we’re confessing things here, we did strongly encourage her to avoid trying for the hat trick by getting Meghann in her class and that probably extended her teaching career by a decade or two! I know I’ll probably pay for that crack but it was on the record at the time and we’re sticking with that story… π
Mrs Hall – 3rd Grade (Douglas MacArthur Elementary — Ft Leavenworth, KS)
There are two teachers in this list who were stunningly beautiful (though in very different ways).
None of us in that class had any idea that a few years later would have Van Halen release a track on their “1984” album that would perfectly capture the visceral initial reaction of every boy in that classroom when she came through the door for the first time.
Mrs Hall was literally what happens when the farmer’s daughter of literary fantasies gets her first gig as a teacher and she’d commute from the farm she grew up on in the small town of Tonganoxie KS to Ft Leavenworth and back every school day. She even had us visit her farm one day where we’d have the opportunity to ride her horses (with varying levels of success).
But what really set her apart from her peers was that she had a level of empathy and understanding the needs of every student that bordered on the supernatural.
So this rather shy kid who’d finish the in-class assignment in five minutes and had about a hour to kill for the rest of the class to catch up really appreciated her letting me quietly turn in my paper and then go in the back to hang out in the corner and quietly read the encyclopaedias and pore over the maps working out the navigation details of various hypothetical trips until it was time for the next lesson to begin.
She had pegged me as being fairly introverted from the off and found a way for it to become a strength rather than a debilitating weakness and never once made me feel bad for wanting to spend as much time quietly learning as I possibly could in a safe little world of the bean bag chairs and books.
Mrs Woods – 4th Grade (Ft Sam Houston Elementary — Ft Sam Houston, TX)
Mrs Woods is the first teacher of mine I can remember getting a look of shock so profound on their face that they literally couldn’t speak for a minute or two. But in a good way… π
During the six weeks of summer I spent in North Carolina with my mother and stepfather which would end up with a PCS to Ft Sam Houston in Texas, my stepfather introduced me to one of his favourite books: “Dune” by Frank Herbert. This is a couple of years before David Lynch would direct the “Dune” film that would darned near destroy Dino De Laurentiis’ production company.
Anywho, about halfway through the year, Mrs Woods asked us to do an oral book report on a book of our choosing and I picked “Dune” which by that point I’d read at least three times.
Let’s just say that there was my choice and then there was the choices made by everyone else in the class and there were many light-years between the levels of difficulty and thickness of the books.
Thanks to my last name, I was the last one up and I give my book report and then looked over to her to see if she had any questions. This is how that exchange went…
- “Did you truly read that book?”
- Yes, ma’am.
- “Don’t lie to me, young man!”
- I promise you that I’ve read it three times including reading it again last week.
- “Really? Then what is the book really about?”
- The political and social interactions between several great powers of a feudal society in a far distant future fighting for control of the universe that utterly depends on a mind-altering substance that is so rare and devilishly hard to collect that it is found on only one completely desert planet whose native population is brutally oppressed and ultimately fights for freedom behind their messiah Paul Atreides.
That was the point that poor Mrs Woods completely vapour-locked in front of the entire class.
I think she got away with it all right because the rest of the class had this stunned look on their face that definitely had “we have no earthly idea what’s going on here” vibes!
After the rest of the class was excused to recess, I showed her that well-worn book and pointed out the relevant sections I had referred to in my oral report. Proving I was telling the truth earned me more than a few sessions with the guidance counsellor to do a battery of tests that would ultimately show I was reading at a high college level.
I’m sure it would come as no surprise that the final oral book report of that year didn’t require the same defence “Dune” had.
The book?
“Dune Messiah”…the sequel to “Dune”. π
Mrs Taylor – 5th Grade (Ft Sam Houston Elementary — Ft Sam Houston, TX)
It was rather ironic that Mrs Taylor did bear a striking resemblance to Miss Taylor (from “Pete’s Dragon”) because she was easily one of the most strict teachers I ever had.
That wasn’t a bad thing because that particular class really did need a strong hand at the tiller but whilst she was very strict when it came to discipline and lack of tolerance for mischief, she was also one of the most fair teachers I’d ever had.
But that’s not what makes her truly memorable.
What I’ll never forget about Mrs Taylor is that she was probably one of the last proponents of perfection in the rapidly fading art of cursive writing. Oh my goodness, my hands and fingers were practically useless after a morning of endless repetitions of creating the perfect cursive letters on those lined sheets of paper.
There’s a reason why I will be forever thankful that I would ultimately end up in a job where I’d type for a living. And that reason would be Mrs Taylor who was capable of probably the most beautiful cursive letters ever seen on this planet!
Mr Cheney – 6th Grade (Ft Sam Houston Elementary — Ft Sam Houston, TX)
Mr Cheney was one of those walking contradictions that would seriously take your breath away.
He was fantastically tall at well over six feet and when he decided he wanted to bark orders from the diaphragm, there wasn’t a drill instructor in the Army (or any other branch of the service for that matter!) who could get a company’s attention faster than that voice.
Truth be told, he scared the hell out of all of us on the first day and absolutely no one was going to do anything to piss that man off.
What was much less obvious was that whilst he was scary tall and scary as hell, he had the heart and soul of a poet and was the sort of person that would not hurt a fly, much less any of the kids.
But that didn’t stop him from taking advantage of letting our imagination and our fear keep us in line so he didn’t have to.
Mr Cheney was big into geography and had every continent done up as a collection of particle board pieces representing each country of that continent as a puzzle that covered a fair bit of the floor.
We knew it was puzzle day when we’d come into the room and all of the desks were pushed to the perimeter of the room.
We’d have competitions to see which group of three students could take his pile of jumbled pieces and put his continent maps together in the centre of the room the quickest.
The record that year for Africa was 19s and South America 12s.
I ought to know…my group set both of those record times and I can’t imagine they’d ever be beaten! π
Coach Beal – 7th or 8th Grade (Westover Junior High — Fayetteville, NC)
Oh boy.
Yep…it’s time for *THAT* story.
First things first…do you remember Shirley Hemphill from the 1970s sitcom “What’s Happening!!” It’s OK if you don’t because that’s what Google really does well.
Don’t worry, we’ve got time.
All right…got the picture? Imagine a thinner version of Shirley Hemphill with the same no-nonsense and brassy attitude and you’ll have a great idea of Coach Beal in action.
She did her best with what she had to work with which in my case wasn’t a whole lot in the athletic department. I’ll give her perseverance and tenacity full marks and will always appreciate that she tried desperately to encourage me to discover at least one talent in PE so she wouldn’t have to give me a failing grade.
Anyway, the day that will forever live in infamy had many components:
- My PE class was right after lunch.
- We were working on a gymnastics unit.
- She was the one who was spotting the students and making sure their technique for a forward roll was safe and effective.
I think you can see where this is going and it’s not a pretty place.
It’s my turn and I tuck into the roll and unfortunately the most notorious orifice I have just happened to roll to a spot about a foot directly below her nose and then the UNTHINKABLE occurred at the worst possible time.
Up to that point in my life, I can truly say I had never seen a black woman’s eyes cross so hard and her afro straighten out as quickly without the use of those hair products from a certain aisle at the store as Coach Beal’s did that day. The gagging sounds she made made it crystal clear she was hoping that oxygen masks would magically deploy from the ceiling of the gym.
I’ll give her credit…there were many ways she could have responded to the very profuse apologies I was offering to her as the rest of the class is laughing their asses off at the predicament but she ultimately chose to kindly ask me to give her a minute or two when she was finally able to speak.
She ultimately did forgive me my transgression (though I did notice that she did keep her distance in spotting my future gymnastic endeavours!) but it was clear she never forgot it when she’d end up with my brother and sister in her PE class who reminded her of who their older brother was.
I wish I was there to see the look on her face but I imagine it was priceless when the penny dropped. π
Mr Crile – 11th Grade (Spruce Creek High — Port Orange, FL)
My fifth and final foray into the depths of American History would be my first AP course that was taught by Mr Crile. It was funny how every time Dad would PCS to a new posting that invariably American History was the required social studies in that new school.
The two things I’ll never forget about Mr Crile is his love of encouraging lively debates in the class and an amazing sense of humour, especially after he had revealed that he was very much Team Mondale/Ferraro and some of the more evil classmates in that class would hammer him on that as about as mercilessly Reagan had done to Fritz Mondale a couple of years prior in the Electoral College.
Anyway, I’d end up sitting the AP American History exam and then I was off to North Carolina for the usual six weeks with Mom. I knew a few of my classmates had gotten their scores in the mail but my results nowhere to be seen.
What I didn’t know at the time was that roughly round the same time as the College Board and the Educational Testing Service was hassling Jaime Escalante’s AP Calculus students and accusing them of cheating, they had taken quite an interest in my AP American History exam.
If you’ve ever seen the movie “Stand and Deliver” with Edward James Olmos, you can imagine what was happening behind the scenes with my exam booklets only it was with far less Latinos involved. They had multiple people grade the exam who came up with the same result and then they came to the school to interview the proctors of record and see the storage cupboard where the exam materials were kept to ensure there was no potential for hanky-panky.
Only then was the perfect 5 with no deduction in points on that exam finally released to my transcript.
I don’t know that I’d ever seen a teacher with a bigger smile when he was finally allowed to give me that happy news! π
Mrs Keith – 11th Grade (Spruce Creek High — Port Orange, FL)
Remember Mrs Hall from way back in the third grade and how I mentioned there were two teachers in this list who were stunningly beautiful?
Mrs Keith is the other one courtesy of a dusky olive complexion and exotic features you can only find when you’re dealing with a real kamaΚ»Δina.
The first day I walked into her English class, it was as if I was stepping off the plane in Maui or Oahu with leis and plumeria *EVERYWHERE*. She was very proud of her Hawaiian heritage and I learned so much about the islands in that year that I was very happy when I was finally able to visit in 2001 on my honeymoon.
That was enough to make her a very memorable teacher but what she could do with her voice when reading poetry was nothing short of magical.
Honestly, I’ll never be able to read Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Bells” without hearing her reciting those lines in her lilting Hawaiian accent with a timing that was truly exquisite and a smile that you couldn’t help but be completely captured under her spell.
Mrs Eastlake – 12th Grade (Spruce Creek High — Port Orange, FL)
Mrs Eastlake’s AP English class was memorable for the huge list of required readings for the summer that she expected you to have completed and be ready to dive into one day one of class.
Among others on that voluminous list was “Paradise Lost” by Milton and now I had a stunning appreciation for what Professor Jennings in “Animal House” was talking about when he says this:
Don’t write this down, but I find Milton probably as boring as you find Milton. Mrs. Milton found him boring too. He’s a little bit long-winded, he doesn’t translate very well into our generation, and his jokes are terrible.
Professor Jennings — “Animal House”
Now I think it’s clear I’ve always loved reading and I’m not shy about tackling material well above my pay grade but I truly wondered how in the hell Mrs Eastlake was going to make “Paradise Lost” at all interesting.
And to my surprise, she actually managed to pull it off when we did the deep dive starting on the first day of school. Anyone who can accomplish that feat definitely ranks amongst the best teachers of all time.
Her class was the first exposure to required reading before the beginning of class but it wouldn’t be the last and that summer reading list was a great intro into how college classes of the time tended to work.
Mrs Hillyard – 12th Grade (Spruce Creek High — Port Orange, FL)
Mrs Hillyard makes this list for one simple reason: her AP Calculus class is easily the hardest class I have ever taken outside of college.
Nothing else even comes close…full stop.
She didn’t have time for excuses and she certainly didn’t make time to listen to them. If you couldn’t keep up with her pacing, you were likely completely screwed for your class grade to say nothing of the AP exam should you last long enough in the class to sit that examination.
That being said, she would move heaven and earth to help you understand the more tricky concepts if you were willing to make the effort to ask her for help. More than a few on-campus lunches were sacrificed for about a hour of time in her classroom tidying up any topics that were vexing me.
She pushed our class in ways we could never have imagined and whereas the scoring of my AP American History exam the year before was straight out of “Stand and Deliver”, Mrs Hillyard’s class was as close as we could come to actually experiencing what Jaime Escalante’s students were put through in that movie with all of the extra studying and massive amounts of homework and pressure that were brought to bear.
So much so that when we finally sat the AP Calculus exam, it seemed far easier than anything we’d endured up to that point. AP Calculus is one of the hardest AP exams administered and I was thrilled to get a 3 on it which meant that I could skip Calculus I at UCF which is one of the nastiest weed-out courses in that course catalogue.
Whew! We made it!
So there they are…the K-12 teachers who I’ll never forget (OK, sorry Mrs Lemonds!) immortalised for as long as the Internet Wayback Machine shall live!
The next post will have two professors who above all ensured that I would actually survive good ol’ “U Can’t Finish” or “Under Construction Forever”. π