The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.

Teachers-Students
Still Make Tight Bonds

by Dessa Rodeffer, Publisher/Owner

24 April 2002

Teachers spend so much time with our children. It is so important in their lives.

This past week, Union students were in tears, telling of their memories of Ag teacher, Mrs. Jodi Heavner, who started an Ag program four years ago from nothing.

Her farming background had given her a no-nonsense way of handling situations, and getting things done.

I can't help but think of all those stories of using baling wire to fix so many things on the farm, and how farmers can make do with what they got, and usually can get to the point pretty quickly when a crisis arises.

Mrs. Heavner told of checking on the fish tank over Christmas break and she had found their had been a power outage resulting in 200 dead fish.

She made some quick phone calls to kids and said, get some buckets and come to the school right away. No one argued, made excuses or even bothered to explain they were dressed up ready to go to a family get-together. They just showed up and hauled out the smelly fish.

It is terrific teamwork, the sort of thing that bonds families at home, as well as teachers and students at school.

One student, on her way home Thursday, stopped to tell me through her tears, that Mrs. Heavner did so much for them. "She had nothing when she came here and she built it all," she said.

I recall those first days, when I went to take her picture of her first days at UHS. She was in a garage with boxes, no tables yet, but she could envision it all.

She said they were going to put some posters up, they were going to get someone to hook up some old computers. In her head, you could tell, she could see exactly what an Ag program should be and what was needed to make it happen.

Where I saw an empty garage, she saw possibilities. Where I saw rowdy kids, she had a special knack of pulling the best out of each of them. She had a way of finding their crazy flaws that all of us have, and would tease them without offending.

She attracted more and more into her classes until she had 70 students learning the variety of jobs available in the wide field of Agriculture.

I don't know her secret. I just know teaching is a gift, like musical talent is a gift.

To the many teachers who are bonding with our kids to pull out their best because you care Ð "thank you," our kids need you.