Students receive notes to self

Like many recent high school graduates, the coffee table in Patty Duncan’s parents’ house is crowded with cards full of good wishes and congratulations.

But Duncan, who graduated from Ferris on June 10, didn’t expect the letter from her third-grade self.

“Hi Patty,” the letter began. It was dated June 10, 1998, and written with her third-grade hand.

The letter was part of a drug and alcohol prevention program that Mullan Road Elementary School was teaching their students at the time.

Duncan’s teacher, Judy Indorf, said that the students discussed what drugs and alcohol would do to their bodies and minds.

“The last project was to write, ‘In nine years when I graduate from high school, I …’ ” Indorf said.

That project helped the students in a couple of ways. It was a way for them to promise themselves to stay off drugs and alcohol and to find a crowd of friends that wouldn’t get them into trouble. It was also a lesson in letter writing.

“There is always a need for drug education,” Indorf said.

Some of the children wrote a lot in their letters, she said. Some wrote just a little, but they all had the same theme.

She had the students put the letters into an envelope and address it to themselves. After the students turned them in, she put them into bundles with a sticky note that told her what year to mail them.

“I was really surprised,” Duncan said. “I hadn’t heard from her in so long.”

Along with the letters, Indorf often includes a copy of the class picture from that year. She keeps all the photos in a scrapbook she’s hoping to organize someday.

The scrapbook has some of her degrees in it and short histories of the schools where she taught. It includes seating charts written in the students’ handwriting and many pictures.

There are class pictures that date back to 1966 when she began teaching at Loma Vista Elementary School and pictures from all the years she taught at Mullan Road – from the time it opened in 1977.

“I must have sent out letters for at least 10 years,” Indorf said. She is still mailing them, even though she’s been retired from teaching since 2004.

Indorf said that because most of her students at Mullan Road either went to Ferris or Lewis and Clark, she calls up the senior counselor to get lists of graduating seniors. She double-checks addresses on her computer and makes changes if the students have moved.

Sometimes, she just sends the letters to the high school.

This year, she had only four letters leftover from students she couldn’t find. One of those students, Willie Ferguson, had just moved to the area when he wrote his letter and didn’t quite have his new address committed to memory.

“I would imagine that most kids were true to their letter,” she said.

And she was not surprised that Duncan was.

“It was probably one of the better gifts that I got,” Duncan said of her letter.

Although Duncan doesn’t remember when she wrote the letter, she said that keeping off drugs or alcohol and never smoking was always something she kept in mind.

She played soccer and basketball at Ferris, was on the track team, was the vice president of her senior class and was involved in the link crew which helps incoming freshmen make the transition into high school.

She’s going to attend Spokane Falls Community College in the fall and hopes someday to attend Washington State University to major in communications. She would like to be a sports broadcaster.

Duncan said she doesn’t remember a lot from Indorf’s class, but she remembers the spelling bees, and she remembers her teacher’s sense of humor.

She doesn’t know if any of her fellow students from Mullan Road received letters, but she was very excited to find hers in the mail.

Indorf said that she often hears back from the students once they get their letters, thanking her for the thought.

“I’m glad that the kids are enjoying them,” she said.