Evans High students deserve recognition for compassionate response

Editor:

I am a math teacher at Evans High School. Generally, newspaper readers can find plenty of bad news concerning young people, so I wanted to share some positive news about my students with you.

Over the Christmas holidays, my grandmother passed away after an extended hospital stay. While this is more than enough pain for my family, my father recently broke the news that he has esophageal cancer. Needless to say, my holidays were even more stressful than usual.

Upon returning to school, I discussed both of these situations with all of my students. I was not looking for sympathy; I simply believed that my students deserved to have this information in case I needed to be out or should become emotional during class.

My father was scheduled for surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. His surgery meant that I would miss three days of classes. I prepared my lessons before those three days to ensure that all of the new material was taught before I left and that the substitute would be able to help the students.

The Monday before I was to leave on Wednesday, five of my students brought in a dozen roses, a gift certificate and a card on which they had written personal comments. They were all wishing me a safe trip and told me that they would keep my dad in their prayers!

While all of my students were very caring and understanding of the situation, these students went above and beyond.

It is amazing and so rewarding to see how incredible these students are! Their parents have really done a wonderful job in raising such caring people.

Buddy Dymeck, Brad Freeman, Brandon Mobley, Adam McKenney and Jessica Brunson definitely deserve special recognition for being such caring people.

Gin Sellers

Evans High School