I’m sitting here typing next to the little heater I plugged in a moment ago; I love my sun room, but as Russ keeps telling me; I have too many windows. Now I do disagree with that, but it does get cool in here. I hope we get a warming trend soon. My son in Germany and my sister in Canada both had warmer weather than we did last week!

I drove up to Dallas Friday morning to attend TCS’ Alumni Banquet. Usually I am here at work and can’t attend so it was quite pleasant. I saw students that had graduated back in the ‘80’s and 90’s. I can’t describe to you the pleasure a teacher gets when a former student hugs you and thanks you for the job you did. You do your job because it is something that you just have to do, but it’s nice to be appreciated from time to time. Time is actually the key. Once the kids get away from school, they look back and understand a little better. One young man called Ty hugged me for the longest time, and stayed and talked at length. I remembered him as a very angry young man who had to visit my office more than once. He is attending seminary to become a pastor! Life is full of surprises. I certainly wish him all the very best. He was a good kid, but had a very troubled home life. I’m glad to see that he’s on the right road. All in all it was an excellent visit, even if it was a little short.

I spent an hour or so in the emergency room with my son Scott’s best childhood friend. He and Benji were in the clown corps for Kid’s Church. The two of them were just plain crazy, but lots of fun. So picture this; Benji is holding his hand in a tub of water. He had been using the table saw and removed the guard. Yup! He cut his two middle fingers, not off, but cut the fleshy portion where all the nerves live. Benji, by the way is a pastor. The nurse came in and asked if he was in pain. He smiled at her and said it was throbbing quite a bit. Dead pan, he then says, "I think the nurse gave me a placebo, or maybe it was an outdated batch."

The second nurse came in and told him no he had received the real thing, but if he was in pain they would give him another dose. Since he had done no bone damage, they opted to just bandage his fingers and let them heal naturally. The nurse brought out this big needle and explained they were going to numb his fingers while they worked on them. With a very serious expression on his face, Ben turned to the nurse held out his fingers and asked, "Do you see all my nerves hanging out there?"

She replied that she could, but not to worry it would only sting a bit. Disbelievingly, he studied her and asked the same question. "Do you see all my nerves hanging out? I think this is going to hurt."

He was 100 percent correct and the next few minutes were extremely painful ones for him. He joked again, this time about the fact at least it was the middle finger and he didn’t use that one. At this point, since I had seen the bandage they were bringing complete with covering tube, I knew he was in trouble so I said, "You might have to rethink that statement."

Sure enough, when complete, he had this huge bandage that stuck up above his hand. Not missing a beat he quickly quipped, "Oh man, I’m not even going to be able to wave to anyone until this comes off!"

I left him in good hands and shared his dilemma with my son Scott. We both had a good laugh about his sense of humor and outlook on life. I wish mine was always as good.

I came back to town with the news that our students had done well at the stock show and the youth fair. There will be a full report printed in the paper so I’ll let you read the results in that column. I can’t wait to get to school Monday and see all the ribbons the kids will want to show me. I try to forewarn them that judges look for different things than I look for when judging. Apparently that came true. I hope you have told all your children how wonderful they are. There are several more stock shows to attend, so please be sure your student stays caught up on their work.

Mrs. Brockman is still working on getting math facts memorized. I’m still working on oral reading and grammar skills. I hate to be repetitive, but our kids must memorize those times tables to advance in math skills. Mrs. Gossett is hunting box tops for the library, so if you have any more please feel free to bring them by the school. If you can’t get by, you can mail them care of Mrs. Gossett or me.

I heard that there is to be a funeral for Billie George’s cousin this week. Elisa Draper called for prayer for her son in Australia. Apparently the floods are devastating and the spring rains aren’t even there yet. His area is still safe, but the rains will come. From the pictures I’ve seen, the area has been severely hit. Susan Luna needs our prayers, as does Charlotte Conley. Charlotte received a negative report about her cancer. Chad Faith is home recuperating from his surgeries. Ginger and Donald went to a hardware convention last weekend. Donald said he’d come back with all sorts of good ideas. I can’t wait to see what that entails! I’m sure it’s a nice break from the daily grind.

Basketball is in full swing, tennis and track are practicing for their short season and everyone has to get ready for TAKS testing. The first group will be in March. We will all be pushing hard to make sure our students are ready. Parents, please make sure your students come to school. The more teaching time your child misses; the more difficult it is to stay on grade level. There is nothing more heart-wrenching, than that little lost look in the eyes of a child. You can make up the homework missed, but you can’t always make up the teaching time. Unless they’re running fever or throwing up, please make sure they come to school.

Just in case you don’t know it, we have a great teaching staff, and super bunch of students. We also have toilets that back up into the sink, heaters that don’t work, and electricity that won’t support our computers, but we are keeping up the good fight. I wonder if some rich basketball player or computercompany owner will donate the money for a new school? I guess that will have to be a matter of prayer.

Please pray for our government, the folks in Arizona, our President, and our precious troops. They make our freedoms possible. I pray that our leaders will think before they speak, pray before they act, and remember who gave them their job. God bless America and Praise God for the rain!