Our dog Sugar is indebted to my third grade teacher Mrs. Bearden for all the affection she receives and the many comforts that make her so spoiled.
Mrs. Bearden loved animals and passed that trait on to her students. If stray dogs or cats wandered onto the school grounds, Mrs. Bearden would spring into action to help them.
She would send one of us kids to the cafeteria for milk and whatever food scraps were available that day. We fed the animals and got them inside out of the hot or cold weather.
The strays would stay in a storage closet until Mrs. Bearden got off work and took them to their owner, a veterinarian or a foster home. I don’t think we had an animal shelter.
I must have been thinking of Mrs. Bearden the night Sugar became an indoor dog. Regina and I planned for her to stay outside, but I saw her shivering by the back door on a cold night. I brought her in, we slept on a blanket on the floor, and she has never spent another night out.
Remembering how Mrs. Bearden instilled compassion for animals in her students reminded me of the impact different teachers at schools in Springhill had on young people.
A quiet, red-haired teacher named Mrs. Norris went to every class in elementary and junior high schools to encourage students to develop an appreciation for music.
She had us singing along with records and passed out bongo drums, little handheld xylophones, musical steel triangles and plastic flute-looking things that she called tonettes.
Students blowing and banging on all those instruments created a cacophony of what she referred to as music. Not many of us became accomplished musicians, but our interest in music grew in those classrooms. Even at my age now, I am taking guitar lessons.
Mrs. Stone and Mrs. Branch were English teachers who taught us to express our thoughts in writing and guided me into pursuing a career in journalism.
They should have gotten some kind of humanitarian award for that. I wanted to be a doctor and might have endangered a lot of lives if I could have passed some science classes.
Lynwood Rhodes was a business teacher. He heard I wanted to go into journalism and required me to take his typing class. He taught me to type with both hands instead of just two fingers.
Another teacher was selling a Royal portable typewriter for $20. Mr. Rhodes talked him into giving it to me for $10. I used it to write countless newspaper stories and still have it.
Coach Bonnette ran the city swimming pool in the summer. He put me through a grueling water safety course and got me a job cleaning the pool and helping with lifeguarding. He pounded a huge sense of responsibility into all of us who worked there.
Lisso Simmons was our elementary principal. He sat with a different group of students at lunch every day. That expanded our self esteem even if a guy at our table did shake up a bottle of milk that was already open and drenched Mr. Simmons with it.
Coach Baucum recognized my lack of football abilities in a hurry but sent me to clinics to learn to tape knees and ankles, made me a trainer and got me a scholarship doing that in college.
Miss Cawthon was a math teacher, and I might have been the worst student she ever had. But we liked each other when I was not trying to work math problems.
She was a good bit older than most of our other teachers and was fascinated with the new activity in those days of “dragging” Main Street. We loaded into cars on Friday nights and drove up and down the street for hours blowing horns and flashing lights at each other.
We invited her to join us one night, and she accepted. She rode in different cars waving and yelling out the window like the rest of us and had a hamburger and malt with us after the ride.
That was a lesson in friendship, and we stayed in touch and remained friends until she died.
There’s a Teacher Appreciation Day every spring when we pause for a moment to recognize teachers for their impact on our lives. We should observe Teacher Appreciation Day every day.