A wonderful teacher remembered

So started the year for my classmate Don as he took his seat in a Senior High Algebra class. The wise teacher that uttered those words was Mrs. Gwendolyn McKenzie. She was a large boned strong woman and none of us, her advanced math, students had any doubt that she demanded anything but our best efforts.

This was a weekend of remembrance for all who gathered for McCook's first All School Reunion. Coincidentally my own class was celebrating 55 years since graduated. So it was that I pricked the memories of my fellows to share stories of the teacher who most influenced us to go out and make our mark in life. For those born mathematically inclined, Mrs. Mac, won hands down.

In my own case I took every available math class offered at McCook Senior High while in the era that I attended. Mrs. Mac taught most of those classes and she prepared me well. Following H.S. graduation I went to the brand new Air Force Academy which like Mrs. Mac demanded our best efforts. I found that I was able to complete with classmates drawn from all over the United States the majority of which had already completed a year or more of college work. College Algebra, Calculus I and II, differential equations, physics, nuclear physics, thermodynamics, aerodynamics, astronautics and I was able to hang in there mainly because of Mrs. Mac's excellent preparation. Now chemistry, which I had skipped in high school, was another matter but eventually I discovered that the secret to chemistry was learning the language and I was able to slip through! No matter, as a whole we Academy students did well enough that the school received national accreditation by the time we, her first class, graduated.

Bob Douglas, world renowned architect related a story similar to my own. As I remember Bob was bright academically and tended to slip by in most subjects without cracking a book. Didn't happen in Mrs. McKenzie's classes! She had a way of expecting the best, never demanding, but causing us students to really excel because we each wanted to please her and thereby meet her high expectations. With her preparation and our Principal Gordon Bliss "arranging" for Bob to take a state wide competitive exam for a Navy scholarship, Bob finished second but in the process realized that yes he could compete with his peers and never looked back. Following a distinguished career and now in retirement, he is a regular guest lecturer for architecture at Harvard University.

Now it didn't work in every case as Pat O'Neil gave her fits. His best friend Bob explained it this way, "Pat just wasn't a numbers person!" Other non-number type persons, example my wife, simply avoided Mrs. Mac and any of her classes. I do remember that in all her classes the student count was small in number which was just as well for those of us who needed her "special attention". But then avoiding Mrs. Mac was not a bad thing because those students also found other teachers to emulate in striving for success. In my heart I know that such great teachers exist today but such is not the goal of teachers unions, the weak but politically correct administration that currently exists, or the ACLU.

During our freshmen year Mrs. Mac was Miss Gwendolyn Jordan. Ten years prior, during WWII, she had been in the Navy teaching some esoteric subject such as the "theory of sailing" or some-such. How she got to McCook or how in her forty's she allowed rough hewn Buck McKenzie to woo and marry her I'll never know. Anyhow it gave long time postal worker Harry Douglass great mirth to note that after the marriage ole Buck began to wear white shirts, suits and ties and adopt more gentile forms of entertainment than the rough cut railroader that Harry remembered of old!

All good things come to an end and in their retirement years Buck died leaving our beloved Mrs. Mac alone once again. As her health began to fail Don "sit right here on the front row" had a chance to pay her back for steering him to the road of success. Don and Norma quietly helped her keep her affairs in order. They arranged housekeeping help, saw to it that her medical needs were met--in short did those things that adult children do for their parents when the "adults" become the "children." Eventually her nieces and nephews, who probably had the most to gain from her considerable estate, demanded that she move to a care home far away from McCook. Sadly she died soon after!

In her memory it is fitting that she be fondly remembered. We whom she helped so well need only offer up a prayer in thanksgiving. She touched many as she deftly steered us to take the fork in the road labeled success!

That is how I saw it.