The 33rd and Last Year I Was in Third Grade

                                                                      2011/2012

                The school year of 2011 began on an ominous note with me missing the first day with students because of my mother's surgery on that day. Thankfully, Janet Smith, a recently retired colleague, and Gayle Reynard, our reading specialist, managed the class with their usual professionalism those first two days.

The group photograph for the last class I taught. Each day, I taught reading and spelling, making
many good memories with the third graders in Mrs. Wendy Lantz's class also. Photograph by Blunck's.

                I found myself missing more days than I ever had due to Mother’s follow-up appointments with her surgeon, as well as her unexpected hospitalization in December. An unrelated mass was spotted on an ultrasound.

                Just three weeks before her scheduled surgery to remove the malignant mass, my father suffered a stroke. My sister told her company she needed one day a week out of her office to assist her mother in caring for Dad at home. I began to pray and think about my role in Dad’s recovery. I could retire from teaching.

In mid-March, as I prepared my lesson plans on my laptop in Dad’s room at the rehab center, an email from our superintendent, Kenny Mason, popped up. He wished all staff a good spring break and reminded us to put our family first. Immediately, I knew what I needed to do.

I presented my resignation to Claudette Mashburn, my principal, following spring break. She asked me to wait until April. When April arrived, my decision to retire was cemented firmly in my mind. I told her, “You can find another third grade teacher, but Dad only has one older daughter - me.” She understood my decision and supported me wholeheartedly.

Most of the days of April and May found Tami Looney Miller teaching the third graders for me. I knew with her experience they were in good hands.

Even though I was out of the classroom for much of the last two months, I took away many memories with this class of 2021. Many of those students were second generation students for me. I had taught in third grade at least one parent of these students, Laney Jones, Aubrey Cason, Ethan Fesler, Laramie Neff, and McKenzi Potter. In addition, I taught primary music to the parents of these students, Hannah Crenshaw, Jacie Edwards, Blaine Denton, and Kaidon Wald. Laney Jones, Hailie Nicholson, Jacie Edwards, Kendra Robertson, Tonya Carnley, and McKenzi Potter had older siblings taught by me.

My first home was on Tre Fish’s great-great grandmother’s original land allotment as a member of the Osage Nation. Kenzi Potter’s great-grandmother and my mother shared first cousins. My mother also shared first cousins with Ethan Fesler’s grandfather. Owen Hutcheson’s great-great uncle, a first-class bass singer, and my mother who sang alto performed the popular hits of the day in a quartet when they both attended Burbank High School in the 1940s.

I shared happy times with each student. New babies arrived in some of the students' families during that third grade year. Several students got new pets they enjoyed telling me about at the cafeteria table as we ate lunch. Sometimes we shared about their fur babies as we waited in the afternoon bus lines.

Some of the students and I prayed for family members experiencing serious illness. I would later cry with other students during heartbreaking sorrow.

Now the class of 2021 prepares to strike out on their own into the daunting unknown of responsibility and “adulting.” I have a couple of wisdom sentences to strengthen each of you for your whole life through. David, the most respected, yet powerful king of ancient Israel, wrote these words:

Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart. (Psalm 37:4 NKJV)

Commit your future to the Lord. Trust in Him, and He will act on your behalf. (Psalm 37:5 NET)

Congratulations and Contentment to the Class of 2021!