27 Aug 2017 Editor’s Note September ’17: An appreciation for teachers

This month’s edition of 501 LIFE “Celebrates Education” as teachers and students head back to class.

New school clothes, school supplies and schedules take me back to different times and places when I was headed back to the classroom. Those memories are more vivid following a trip last summer and one in June to places where my family lived.

My dad was stationed at Corpus Christi Naval Air Station in Texas when I started in the first grade at Flour Bluff Elementary School. Mom would make my lunch every morning and I would walk with my Big Chief Tablet in hand to school, a distance that seemed to be miles and miles as a child. This summer, much to my amazement, I discovered it was no more than a mile. Whatever.

While in the sixth grade, Daddy received orders to a new assignment on Whidbey Island in the Puget Sound of Washington. So, in the winter, we loaded up the blue family station wagon to make our way from the mild temperatures of South Texas to the much colder Pacific Northwest. We arrived in Oak Harbor on Valentine’s Day.

Eighteen months later, after Daddy retired with 20 years of military service, we loaded up the family station wagon in early fall and made the trek to Arkansas.

Last summer, my family took a road trip to the Pacific Northwest, affording me my first opportunity to return to Oak Harbor. This summer, my family traveled to Corpus Christi and we visited the place where my education started. While the campus has changed and some of the buildings I remember are long gone, several still remain. How neat to see that my sixth grade classroom is now the district’s Spirit Store. (I am forever grateful for the staff who indulged an old Flour Bluff Hornet on a trip down memory lane.)

What fun it was to explore both schools with my sisters and reminisce about our teachers and friends. We have incredible memories of our time in school, in Texas, Washington and Arkansas. We were blessed with wonderful teachers who made an investment in us and in our futures through our education, and we are thankful.

As the 501 heads back to school, we are appreciative of our many dedicated educators and we thank them for their service. Here’s to “Loving LIFE” in the 501 and making great school memories.