for Olathe

Good morning dear friends and family!  Sending you the best of wishes for a beautiful day, all the way from here along the Western Slopes of the great state of Colorado.  It's going to be a mostly cloudy kind of day here in Montrose County and it would appear that the temperature now is just about as warm as it is going to get this day.  As in everything, we definitely better be giving thanks for the little things.  Our current temperature of  43 degrees is a heat wave compared to the weather many people have had in the U.S. as of late.  Always good to be remembering things like that before we are tempted to start "belly aching" about where the warm weather is hiding out.

Last night was a busy one here as we spent the evening down at Montrose High School helping out with the special event that our district hosts each year.  The "Fourth Grade Showcase" is an event that is put on by the physical education departments of each of the elementary schools.  Our students at Olathe as well as the students at the other five attendance centers gather as one mass group and show their physical prowess as they dance, exercise and have fun being active.  It was a great time by all and by the way the bleachers filled up with family members and friends who watched them perform, it was an evening well spent. 

Earlier this week on Monday, we all met to practice over at the gym and in the midst of it all, I received the following text...


"It's a girl!  Just born."

Thanks to the help of my dear friends and fellow fourth-grade teachers at OES, Amanda and Erin, I was able to step outside of the gym for a while and catch up with my son Ricky who was far away on a place called Whidbey Island.  Little Catherine Lois Miller had only minutes earlier made her arrival, exactly on the date that she was supposed to.  This new "grandma's" heart was overflowing with joy and gratitude for the gift of this new life.  As I sat there watching the kids perform last night and listened to the music in the background, it was a nice memory of that Monday three days earlier.  For me, it's where the term "priceless" comes from and I wouldn't trade that memory for anything.  EVER.

There was something else I noticed about myself last night as I watched my students interacting with one another on the gymnasium floor and it was something I already knew but for some reason last night it was so apparent.  The something is this ~ I am proud of them and I love them, each and every one.  There they were performing, each of them clad in nice white shirts and dark pants.  They were a bit nervous at first but after the initial shock wore off (LOL which took all of about 90 seconds) they did great!  The combined efforts of the three fourth-grade sections at Olathe as well as the classes from Cottonwood and Northside Elementary Schools came together and the 60 minute show that followed was a testament to the fact that "getting your body moving" is a pretty decent way to live your life.

This has been one of the fastest years that I have ever taught.  No kidding!  I'm thinking pretty much that they invented the saying "Time flies when you are having fun!" just for school years such as this one.  My 36th year of being an educator, one that was pretty much unplanned by me, has been an eye opener and "filler of the spirit".  This much I can tell, with everything that is in me, I'm forever grateful that I had the chance to come to a little place that was just up the road from our home here in Montrose, Colorado.

My students know the story of my early days here and they understand full well of how homesick and desperately  lonely I was.  From time to time, especially when we are having a rough day in the classroom and I feel myself getting stressed out with the day, I still stop to pause and look out at them.  When my eyes get a little watery (and it's not from allergies, by the way) and I start to look out at them one by one, they know what is coming.  I tell them the very same thing, over and over again and since they have heard it so much, they can tell exactly the words I will say. 

"Sometimes I have to stop and remember how hard I looked all summer long to find you.  I was sad and lonely, homesick for Kansas and just when I was about ready to give up..."

And undoubtedly my dear young friend Kevin will always finish it for me. 

"And there we were!  Isn't that right Mrs. Renfro?  You found us?"

You bet I found them but what I also encountered was an entire building filled with the faces of lots of good folks.  They were to become my new friends and people who would end up guiding me along the way through my first months and by the time that May rolls around, my first year in Colorado.  It seemed to be forever before I found my way around and equally so to learn their names and the rooms which belonged to them but that's not important.  I did it.  I have worked in countless elementary schools in Kansas and I have  loved my experiences in each one of them.  Kansas school teachers and the students that enter into their classrooms each day will always have a special place in my heart.  

Yet here at Olathe Elementary, I was able to find my niche for this year.  I've said it before and I will undoubtedly say many times over.  It has proven to be this 36th year of teaching that will go down in my memory as the year I finally became the teacher that I was probably destined to be.  Mistakes have been made on a daily basis but I have learned from each one of them.  I now can say that I truly understand the concept of learning things "on a need to know basis" and it's a good thing that this 58-year old brain of mine still has the capacity so to do. 

So to the fine and caring people of Olathe Elementary, this I say......

"Thank you friends, one and all, for helping me this year.  It was no accident that we were to meet, not even close to one. Truly, it was supposed to be.   Never have I taken on a teaching assignment with such a short time before a school year was to begin.  Yet even in that, I had nothing to fear.  YOU GUYS WERE THERE!  Amanda and Erin, bless their young hearts, picked up not only their responsibilities but many of mine as well.  All throughout the building, from the office staff to the kitchen workers, to the custodial folks and every teacher and support person that walked the halls, people were there to help me.  I had a gazillion things to learn but I didn't have to be afraid because I wasn't in it all alone.  Oh no, far from it.  That's the thing I like about our school.  We take care of one another and not just when it's convenient for us to do so.  We do it EVERY day and I know that is a blessing.

You saved me. Plain and simple.  Do you know that?  I never told any of you really how I was feeling.  Oh yes, I told you that I missed my old home in Kansas and my family/friends that were still  there.  But I never let on how bad my homesickness had become and just how close I had been to giving up here in Colorado and returning back across the mountains and going home to the flatlands of the Midwest.  I was ready, sad to say.  You folks became my "anchors" and although I will never be able to explain it fully to people, especially those that have never been in our building, your part in my life here was most important.  My dear husband Mike, who put up with a lot of tears and sad days when I would say "I just want to go back home" would echo the same sentiments.  He noticed the change in me from the first day of school and has seen me grow in strength since our beginning  day of school together, now so many weeks and months ago. 

I want you to know that I am grateful, REALLY grateful to you all.  A year ago at this time as I was sitting at my desk in the Title I classroom at Lincoln Elementary in Hutchinson, KS I had no idea that there was a place called Olathe, Colorado.  Little did I know the way my life was to turn but I believe in my heart that all things happen for a reason in this life.  It was a part of God's plan for me, a Kansas school teacher, to come and find you.  Thanks for being there when I definitely needed you the most.  It's been a privilege and an honor to work with you this year.  Some day perhaps I hope to pay you back for the many kind things that you have shown to me."

The year I became an "Olathe Pirate" and by the way, we are the GOOD kind of pirate :)

 

Sure glad that these fifth graders back at Lincoln Elementary taught me and "old lefty" how to do lattice multiplication a few years ago.  It has been used quite often in my fourth-grade classroom at Olathe this year.

 

Mike and I back in August when we returned to Kansas for a short visit.  We were standing in the gymnasium of my old school Lincoln Elementary in Hutch.  We wanted to take a picture underneath the basketball goal that we had been married under, three month's prior.  Mike Renfro has learned quickly what it is like to be married to a teacher and has risen to the occasion.  He is forever picking up things for the kids to use in our classroom and they love to see him stop by and visit.