Sunday evening

Today was a great day.  I had the opportunity to go to church and listen to a great sermon by our pastor, John Fitzgerald.  John was speaking on the idea mentioned in the Book of James about being a "doer" not just a hearer.  While this has religious implications it also has educational and social implications as well.

As an educator, I feel a responsibility to those that I teach and come in contact with as well.  Oliver Wendell Holmes is credited with a thought .."An educator can never tell where his influence stops." and I feel this is really true. I have had two recent examples of this -- one is a former student when I was teaching biology at East Mecklenburg High in Charlotte back in 1970s.  She recently found me on Facebook and wrote to tell me that I had inspired her to go into medicine which she did attending Bowman Gray School of Medicine at Wake Forest University.

A second was a student when I was principal at West Lincoln High in Lincolnton.  While I did not teach him directly I apparently instilled some love of learning and he is now a neurosurgeon in Chicago!!  I am so very proud of these two and all the others with whom I came into contact -- I do not know what happened to them but I hope in some small way I made a difference in their lives.

I had the opportunity to ride around Watauga County today and look at some of the Quilt Trail (http://www.watauga-arts.org/pages/barn.html ) this is where old barns get a painting of a mountain quilt pattern. There are other counties where this is being done as part of the Mountain Heritage projects.

My daughter and I road around and had a great visit.  She is leaving early tomorrow to continue a new phase in her life teaching at a school in Tucson, AZ.  She is excited and I am for her -- she is a great person and a great teacher -- I am very proud to have had some small part in her -- other than some genes that is!! LOL!!

So please take the opportunity and be a DOER yourself -- make a difference