OnCe a Pirate, always a pirate

12/11/2017

Former Principals/APs/Piedmont Institutions Ms. Powell, Mr Spivey and Ms. Gardner came back to say goodbye. Ms. Johnston has been here 30 years! She's taugth the moms and dad's of some of our students when their parents went through Piedmont!

Piedmont celebrated the many years of service of Ms Johnston and Ms Self after school today. When I think of Piedmont without them, not only do I get a little misty-eyed, I also think of how we are all so different and how each one of us contributes to the magic that makes Piedmont Piedmont.
I’m sure we will have more official remembrances but I want to write a few words of what I’ve learned from them personally in the 20+ years I’ve known each of them.
From Ms Self I learned that being a hostess is not something that can be entered into lightly. Ms Self has a gift at making every event special and of giving of herself. And I don’t just mean her delicious homemade recipes - I mean giving thought and planning and care and attention throughout. She extends that same care to everything at Piedmont - from the MMIS reports, to the supplies, to the infamous “Lou’s cart” which will forever be called such.

Dawn and I knew each other before I went to Piedmont. We both met in Gaston county in 1993 or so. Who would have known we’d end up teaching together just a few years later? So many ways we’re opposite: from our hair (mine perpetually messy, hers always done) to our politics (mine liberal, hers conservative) yet our differences only make me respect her more. And I don’t mean that I wish that I could look so put together every day or explain math with flair or drive a fancy sports car. I mean that I wish that I could eyeball a class and know in seconds who will be trouble, who to separate, who will work for candy, and who needs an extra hug. I wish I could be so confident and kind, I wish I knew how to hold my tongue when the situation called for it and to also express my mind when someone needs a good telling-off. (Who knew she got sent to the principal’s office for it?) I wish I knew how to teach with the steadfastness she does so that even the toughest kids remember her with love generations later.

It makes me think of another friend of ours, Dee Gardner, and her old Piedmont motto, “Together we can!” Because separately we’re all awesome in our own ways, as we saw as we honored Dawn and Lou today, but together we are superheroes.

I was told Dawn didn’t want to cry (she did) so not to say anything sappy but I'm going to miss you, Dawn and Lou. We all are.