The One about Mrs Owens.

Tribute to Thanksgiving #27: "A good teacher can inspire hope, ignite the imagination, and instill a love of learning." - Brad Henry

I played the clarinet in the band in sixth grade at the intermediate school and continued playing it through my seventh and eighth grade years at the junior high. By the time my seventh grade year rolled around, I was sort of over it. I needed something else to hold my sanity intact, it seemed. So, during registration at the end of my seventh grade year, I chose choir in addition to band.

Growing up, after I was about eight years old and on, I got picked on a lot because of my weight and my hair and my boyish facial features. When I entered junior high, I only expected it to get worse. And it did.

My seventh grade year was pretty terrible. My hair was in its infamous chili-bowl cut. I was a troubled teenager. I made myself - and my mom, especially - miserable. I cried a lot. I was really negative and I felt horrible about what I looked like. I wasn't a mischief; I was shy and quiet most of the time. It was just a mess of negative emotions all over the board. But really: junior high, for just about any kid, sucks.

Except there was one hour of everyday when I was in the eighth grade during school hours that I was able to sort of be a "star," and that was in choir. I took everything in my life pretty seriously (you think I'm bad now?... be grateful you didn't know me then!), so I was very focused on staying as alert and on-the-ball as possible. It wasn't hard for me to do because it really was so enjoyable. Thanks to Mrs. Owens, the choir teacher.

From the very first day I met her, she made me feel like a million bucks. She had groups of four people come up to the piano and sing for her. If I'm remembering correctly, it was "America, the Beautiful." She kept looking at me while we were singing, not saying anything, just with a curious expression. She came up to me at the end of the class and asked me if I had taken voice lessons. I told her I had been for eight years. She said, "You have a gift." That simple.

The class met first thing each morning. Mrs. Owens made us laugh, made us cry (good-cry), made us think, and (silly as it may sound) made us grow. It quickly became the reason that I liked going to school. It became the thing that made the rest of the day just right. Mrs. Owens also taught at the high school when she left the junior high campus. There, she taught four choirs: Mixed Choir, Ladies' Choir, A Cappella Choir, and Show Choir. That meant that when I finished my eighth grade year at the junior high and moved onto the ninth grade at the high school, I would still get to have her as my teacher. When I started the ninth grade, I decided to take both Ladies' Choir and A Cappella Choir and dropped out of Band.

Choir became a little safe haven for me. It was its own little room far away from the rest of the classrooms, with high ceilings, stereos, risers, and whiteboards. My ninth grade year was so wonderful there. I met some people who became dear friends; I went to Branson; I sang my heart out; I even danced a little. Mrs. Owens absolutely became a mentor, someone I felt I could talk to for hours, someone who I could listen to for hours, someone I could joke with, someone who took good care of her students. She was the teacher who made her choirs feel like they were a chorus of angels because of how hard we worked. She taught us how to "blend" as singers, how to feel what we were singing. She was the teacher that made learning music enjoyable. She was that teacher who stopped teaching us music momentarily in order to talk to us about the attacks on September 11th, in order to ease our minds even a little. She was the teacher who let us stop singing to go see the snow falling outside. She was the teacher who made us laugh until we cried, the teacher who joked with us, the teacher who pranked us. The teacher who absolutely and undoubtedly loved her students from the very bottom of her big heart.

Toward the end of my ninth grade year, things started to get a little weird. The seniors were taking extra initiative in preparing everyone for the next year. There seemed to be more tears than even I thought normal. I had an inkling something big was going to happen at the end of the year, but I wasn't sure what it was.

One day, during Ladies' Choir, we were rehearsing a Disney medley we would be singing for the concert at the end of the year. At the very beginning of it, I had the solo, "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes." Mrs. Owens was accompanying us on the piano. As I sang, I watched Mrs. Owens' eyes well up, and tears started to fall. That's when I knew what was happening. She was leaving my high school to go teach somewhere else. I didn't say anything to anyone about it - besides my brother - because I still wasn't sure. But sure enough, a few days later, Mrs. Owens had us all sit down, and she told us the news. She would be teaching at another high school closer to her home. I was so sad. She had become a dear, dear friend, and I was so sad that I wasn't going to get to learn from her anymore.

The next years of high school came and went. I found my niche in theatre, but I stayed in choir. I saw Mrs. Owens at competitions and we would hug tight. We wrote emails back and forth for a while. I even went to visit her at her house and talked to her for several hours. She offered advice on boys, college, and life in general; we talked about her choirs and her personal life as well. Then I graduated and went away to college. I came back one year and attended her Christmas concert. As I watched and listened to her choirs sing, I was filled with such an overwhelming feeling of advantage and gratification for those two years that I took classes from Mrs. Owens. I felt so lucky laugh with her, cry with her, learn from her, and just know such an amazing lady.