Students Fondly Recall Most-Memorable Teachers
By Kristy Luce
Junior, West Valley High School.
The first day of school was upon me, and my destination was Orchard Center Elementary, home of the Cougars. Cougars are supposed to be strong. Yet, when I got into the car with my mom I felt like a baby kitten. I was terrified. It was a new school, with new peers, in a whole new environment. I had no idea what to expect.
I walked into class that morning, and there was Mrs. Cannon. She was a slender woman with shiny, black hair. I thought she was gorgeous and genuinely friendly. From that moment on, I had a sense that it would be an exceptional year.
Mrs. Cannon proved herself to be a special teacher. Her views were plain and simple: We were there to learn, and she was going to do the best job she could to ensure it. She made learning fun.
Mrs. Cannon had compassion for each student. She took the time to get to know me and everyone else. If someone was upset, she would try to help.
She also helped to teach me that if I want something, I’m the only person who can get it for me. If I work hard enough for it, then I will get it. “Quit” or “I can’t” were not words in her room.
Mrs. Cannon believed in academics. She felt they were the key to being successful in life, and though we were only fourth graders, it was important for us to know this.
Every Friday she gave us a spelling test. Those who achieved 100 percent put their names in a basket. Mrs. Cannon would draw two names, a boy and a girl, and take them to lunch the next Friday.
I remember the time she pulled my name out. I was so excited. At home, we never had enough money to go out to eat, so it was a treat for me. I went with Chad Mackay, and we chose the A&W. I got a bacon burger, french fries and a milkshake, and it was the best lunch I had all year long.
Sometimes I still think back to that lunch and wish I could have it back. It all seemed so simple then. If I worked hard enough for something, then I was rewarded royally. That lunch taught me that there are people watching over me who want me to succeed.
Luce is in Nancy Cartwright’s Honors Humanities/English class. Sally Cannon now teaches at Contract Based Education.
By Mark Nance
Junior, West Valley High
“Boredom is the shriek of unused capacities.” In every school, the scream is deafening.
That sophomore is an athlete, boiling alive in the primordial swamps of biology. That senior is an actress, scratching and breaking nails in a useless keyboarding lesson. That one is an accountant, crunching through ancient dates and somehow passing history. This one is a poet trapped in a grueling stint of general physical education.
My freshman year, everything was easy to me. They wanted me to be a freshman, and I lived the part so perfectly. Everything but my period with Nancy Cartwright. In her English class I was a human being with responsibility.
It’s strange, something this country doesn’t know yet, but people, whether they are young or old, will perform when pushed. I spoke at a school board meeting that year, because of Mrs. Cartwright. I did a lot of things I never would have done.
Everyone is looking for their sacred little place today. It’s sad, but no one knows where they will be a year from now. Are your parents going to split up? Are you going to move away, to far off Oregon - there’s a better paying job there. A lot of people are unfortunate enough to miss finding their proper piece of society, simply because no one says it’s out there. I was lucky. I found Mrs. Cartwright.
High school is not, and I do not believe it ever was or will be, the golden time of youth. No one likes high school. Ask them. People like the things they did then.
Do you know when the Magna Carta was signed? Anyone? Anyone? 1215 AD, in England. Know what AD stands for? It’s not After Death.
No one likes high school. It’s the freedom that we come to hold and love.
This freshman wants to be an athlete. This freshman wants to be an engineer. This freshman plays the saxophone. This freshman, like all her predecessors, walks down Junior hall, looking at a class schedule. She wants to be a poet. Room 220, Nancy Cartwright. I know as she turns the door’s marred knob that, somehow, another poet has found her pen, and another class its voice.
Nance is in Cartwright’s Honors Humanities/ English class.
By Jay Bemis
8th grade, Mountain View Middle School.
I truly do respect teachers for all the things they go through every day. You would think that they would just give up and quit. It takes a lot of effort to be a teacher.
But I know of one very special teacher who changed my whole opinion on life and school. She was my sixth-grade teacher, Mrs. Kirstie Dye. Every day she started the day with a smile and ended the day with one. She always had us doing cool projects, and I always felt like doing my best. Mrs. Dye never had any favorites. She treated everybody the same. I guess what I liked best about her is that it didn’t seem like she was trying to make life hard on us.
Bemis is in Shelli Wood’s English class. Kirstie Dye now teaches at Centennial Middle School.
By Bill Eller
8th grade, Mountain View Middle School
I think that all the teachers at Mountain View Middle School are outstanding, but I’m going to write about our Earth science teacher, Dave Smith.
I look forward to Mr. Smith’s class, because he has a lot of experiments and diagrams to help us learn.
He always talks to the students with respect. If a student has something to say, he always looks at it from their point of view before his. If a student has a question, he always answers it thoroughly. If it is a question he can’t answer, then he researches it and shares the answer with us the next day.
Mr. Smith is the funniest teacher I have ever had. He tells stories about his family and students from the years before and about the places he’s been. Many of the stories have a lesson that was learned.
Mr. Smith loves to travel. He always tells us about his trips, the culture and way of life he’s seen. He always takes some kids over to Europe during spring break, the ones who can pay for the plane ticket. I always wondered why he doesn’t take the week off like all the other teachers.
Mr. Smith talks to students out of the classroom as well as in it. When we are in the lunch line, he talks to me and others, while his lunch is getting cold.
Mr. Smith is a well-liked teacher at Mountain View.
Eller is in Shelli Wood’s English class.
By Brittney Pence
6th grade, Chester Elementary School
The teacher who is the most inspiring to me is Mrs. Sharon Sell. She’s an Able Learner teacher, and she is exuberant, exquisite, whatever you want to call her.
I started “Ables” in the fifth grade. I was so freaked out on the first day because I thought all the kids in my class would be brainiacs. Mrs. Sell made me feel welcome, though.
Mrs. Sell is a little woman, but her wisdom is the size of the Eiffel Tower. She makes me feel like my work deserves the gold medal in the Olympics. Sometimes she gets upset, but hey, everyone does, one time or another.
Mrs. Sell has discipline: tight deadlines, hard assignments or long essays. You can’t make it in life if you don’t have discipline, though. So, I guess she helped me out there. She is a wonderful woman.
Pence is in Nancy Hicks’ class at Chester Elementary School.
By Cassie Lown
6th grade, Chester Elementary School.
When I grow up I want to be a famous actress like Julia Roberts. She’s one of my idols.
Mrs. Laurie Wendt, my music teacher, has been a great inspiration for me, because every year we do a play.
Mrs. Wendt gives us many opportunities for parts in the play. This year I received three parts. In fifth grade I was only in the chorus. In fourth grade, though, we did Johnny Appleseed, and I received a part in that.
I’ve been in many plays. I did one for summer school. It was superb. All of the rest that I did were fairytales in my friends’ backyard. We did tales such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Rumplestiltskin, Three Billy Goats Gruff, and so on. In conclusion, Mrs. Wendt, my music teacher, has inspired me most.
Lown is in Nancy Hicks’ class.
By Jason Jones
6th grade, Chester Elementary School
The best teacher I ever had was my first-grade teacher, Mrs. Catherine Yajko. She taught me how to read in about two weeks. She was always kind to the kids.
Close to the end of my first-grade year, she asked me if I wanted to take care of the class chameleons over the summer. I said “yes.” After the summer was over, she came to my house to get them. As a reward she took me out to eat at Ron’s Drive In.
In my second grade year, I also got to take care of them, Then the next year my sister was in her class, so she got to take care of them.
Out of all my years of school, Mrs. Yajko probably taught me the most.
Jones is in Nancy Hicks’ class.
By Rachel Kiblen
Sophomore, West Valley High
On my first day of seventh grade I thought that I was so grown up. Everything was going to be completely different. I wasn’t the youngest anymore. I could chew gum and drink pop in the classrooms, and best of all, I got to switch classes.
I had second period history with Mr. Olson. I had heard many stories about Mr. Olson. People said that he owned a collection of paddles, including his favorite, “The Big O.” When I walked into the room, the first thing I heard was “Spit your gum out.” I did. I wasn’t planning on meeting with “The Big O” on my first day.
After that first week, my feelings toward Mr. O changed from scared to respectful. Mr. O. was one of the best teachers I would ever have. He had a certain way of teaching that made anything easy to understand. He mixed his good humor with lessons and stories of his life. Boy, did he have some stories.
He had some favorites, such as the first time he got to use a ballpoint pen and then went and bragged to his friends. Or when he would ride his horse through Northwood when no one lived there to visit his girlfriends over at Hutton Settlement.
The story I remember best was about kids who were born in ketchup bottles screaming “Ma!” This one really made me think. I finally came to the conclusion that people born in ketchup bottles were the people who didn’t live life to its fullest. I looked at life differently after that.
During my eighth-grade year Mr. Olson was diagnosed with lung cancer.
I was on ASB, and one of my jobs was to change the reader board. Tawsha Box and I put up big black letters that said, “We love you Mr. Olson.” We took a Polaroid picture of it and gave it to him the next day. A tear ran down his face, and he said “You guys are the greatest.”
In my sophomore year, I learned that Mr. O had a brain tumor. I knew that he was going to die, but I didn’t want to think about it. Instead I thought about when he was teaching and happy.
On Oct. 2, 1995, our teacher told us that Mr. O. had passed away over the weekend.
I will never forget Mr. O. He touched many lives, including mine.
Kiblen is in Nancy Cartwright’s Honors Humanities/English class.
By Jay Castro
Sophomore, West Valley High
Teacher (tee-cher) n. A person who teaches others, especially in school.
If only it were that simple. Webster forgot counselor, combat medic, role model, mediator, poet and a person with an extreme amount of tolerance.
In my opinion, a teacher who just conveys information should be a telephone operator.
In order to teach you must take an interest in not only what you are teaching, but how you teach it. You must strive to pull out the maximum potential from each student.
In fourth grade (at Ponderosa Elementary in Post Falls), I was lucky enough to have such a teacher, Mrs. Mary Reed. But before you understand why she made such an impact, you have to understand a little about my life then.
When I entered her class, my life was not the greatest. Family problems and poor self-esteem had started me down a bad path. I was not applying myself in school and would snap at any teacher or student who bothered me.
But, Mrs. Reed saw something when she looked at me. For the first time, someone saw my gifts and tried to draw them out. She did not care about my past, only my future.
And boy, was she stubborn. She wrote “Jay is just coasting” on my report card. She would not weather my tantrums and outbursts; she would simply send me out of the room. She wouldn’t accept my excuses for late homework.
At the time, I thought she was the meanest person to walk the face of the earth. Now, I see that she only wanted me to succeed.
I am involved in several clubs and organizations now. In many, I am an officer.
Though she may not know it, I owe much of my success to her. Thank you, Mrs. Reed, for the “Most Improved Student of the Year” award. That simple gesture helped me more than you will ever know.
Castro is in Nancy Cartwright’s Honors Humanities/English class at WVHS.
By Rebekah Stranberg
2nd grade, Freeman Elementary School
Dear Mr. Dale Schwartz, I wrote this letter to thank you and very much appreciate the kind and fabulous person you are. You always challenged me and gave me courage not to give up. And when I didn’t feel good at all, you would always care and say can I do anything for you? You are also the most special teacher in the whole world, because you aren’t only important to me, you are important to my caring family and many more children, too.
The thing I will always remember through my life is the good hugs.
Stranberg is in Tracy Wheeler’s class at Freeman.
By Tommy Lonam
2nd-grade, Freeman Elementary School
Dear Mr. Jim Straw, Thank you for making me run faster. Thanks for playing my favorite games and picking me to be “it” at tag. Thanks for teaching me to be a good sport.
Lonam is in Tracy Wheeler’s class at Freeman, where Straw teaches physical education.
By Risa Lara
4th-grade, Freeman Elementary School
Dear Mrs. LaRonda Blanchat, I really enjoyed having you as a teacher. I liked it when you congratulated me when I got 100 percent on a test. You really taught me things. When I wasn’t having a good day, you would cheer me up. When I got a few questions wrong, you would tell me to keep working at it. You also made me laugh. So I guess I could say, you’re my favorite teacher.
Lara is in Nancy Hawley’s class at Freeman Elementary School.
MEMO: See related story under the headline: Pet teachers