May 2011

Once things calmed down a little after all of the trips and storms in April, I decided it was time to adorn my bare porch with some flowers.  Here is one of the planters that sits by the door.  I also have hanging baskets with impatients.  Seeing the beautiful arrangements and watching them grow throughout May has been so fun. 

Soon it was Mother's Day weekend.  This is Amanda one of my precious homeroom students.  Earlier in the week she asked me what she could get me for Mother's Day.  I told her that I didn't need anything and she persisted.  Finally I smiled and said, "Why don't you just get me a flower, a rose would be nice."  So on Friday she proudly walked into homeroom holding a Sonic cup with a beautiful red rose.  She walked up to my desk, held it out to me and said, "Happy Mother's Day, because you are a mom to all of us."  It really touched my heart.  The Lord has been so good to give me the opportunity to minister to so many children for 21 years now.

The Friday after Mother's Day was the Jr/Sr banquet.  It was held in the pavilion of Chester Frost Park.  It was a relaxing evening for my colleague Leah and I because neither of us were in charge.  Next year I will be in charge of the Jr/Sr banquet, but this year I was able to enjoy the work of another teacher and class.  It was a lovely evening.  Especially enjoyable were the testimonies that the juniors gave about the seniors.  We had an excellent senior class that have been godly examples.  This is always the event that begins the festivities leading up to graduation and the goodbyes to the senior class.

The next week was our final week with the seniors and so we had a celebration for the 5 seniors in drama class on our last day with them.  Kaity, Brittany, Hunter, Kaylee and Kelsey have been such a blessing to me.  They have all been involved in speech and drama extensively through high school.  Each of them has wonderful talents and I'm excited that they are all going on to Christian colleges.  It was hard to say goodbye, but I'm excited to see what God will do in their
lives as they take this giant step.

This is an awards ceremony where students received special awards and honors.  The last two weeks of school were a blur.  We had special meetings, chapels, awards programs, final exams and one sweet graduation service.   My friend Patti that I taught with for a number of years came back for graduation and stayed with us one night.  It was a wonderful finale to a fantastic year.  

On my last day of work all of the teachers met at IHOP for breakfast.  Whew!  What a wonderful feeling to know that all of the papers were graded and all requirements were met.  I met Brian and his parents for lunch that day to celebrate and then I went home and collapsed.  I love this picture of Essie because she loves to collapse with me.  She is my faithful companion.  She doesn't say anything; she is just there to rest with me when I've given every last ounce of strength.  Now we are working to recuperate.  Praise the Lord the summer is here!  Next update....

June 2011 (coming soon)

April 2011 -- Part II

In addition to all of my work with the drama students, I also spent much time visiting with friends and family during the month of April.  While I was in Greenville I was able to visit with some of my good friends my days at Northland Camp.  We usually try to get together for lunch and this year Amy, Kim and Lisa were able to come.

We had lunch in a cute little Italian cafe.  What it fun it was to talk, laugh and remember the "Good Ole' Days."

Another friend I was able to see at BJU was one of my high school classmates, Vicki.  We had a nice time chatting for about an hour in the snack shop and then we went to college chapel together.  It was so good to see these and many other friends while in Greenville.

Not long after we returned from one trip we left on another one.  We made arrangements to meet my parents for Easter in Blowing Rock, NC.  It was about equal distance for each of us.  We had a wonderful weekend together with many adventures.  Here are my parents on the swing of the Mast General Store.  We were able to hear some real mountain music while visiting this authentic country store.

After a fun day sight-seeing and shopping we were also able to go to church together on Easter Sunday morning.  Since the sun was very bright we wore our shades for this picture!

It was so good to be with Mom and Pop for Easter.  This was the first Easter in a long time that we were able to be together.

On our way to church that morning we stopped at this beautiful overlook.  The weather was gorgeous and the view was breathtaking.  It was a glorious morning to remember and celebrate Christ's resurrection. We headed home after a quick Sunday lunch at Panera Bread and prepared for another week of work.

Little did we know that on Wednesday of that next week one of the worst storms with devastating tornados would descend upon our area.  Thankfully our home, church, school and family members were all spared.  However, within 15 miles of our house homes, schools and businesses were destroyed and many lost their lives.  What a sobering reminder that in the midst of a busy life, life can so quickly be taken or altered.  What peace it is to know Jesus Christ as personal Savior.  We are so thankful for salvation and His peace in the midst of the storm.  I remember singing "Till the Storm Passes Over" with a trio in college.  Now that song has greater meaning.  So thankful for His protection as the storm passed over.  

Well, April ended with a bang and then we entered the final month of school...

May 2011 (coming soon)

April 2011 -- Part I

April was such a huge month that I have to do this one in two parts.  This part will be devoted to our journey to Greenville, South Carolina and back for AACS National competition.  It was the highlight of the school year.  Our choric speaking group performed "Casey at the Bat."  We practiced over 40 hours on this 6 minute performance.  So to reward the students and get them to have the mindset of a real baseball game we went to see the Chattanooga Lookouts play the Saturday before we left on our trip.  The students immediately got in the spirit of the game.  Here are two of the drama stars Hunter and Rachel.  They are always ready to eat ice cream and smile for the camera.

In the introduction of our performance we sing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," so the group sang it the night of the Lookouts game with added gusto!

I had gotten my hair cut and colored that day and so here I am enjoying the festivities!!  The Lookouts won that night (Casey did not strike out to lose the game) and we were in high spirits to head to nationals.  We loaded our bus on Tuesday morning and made the trek to Greenville.  It is nice that it is a trip that takes about 5 hours with a group.  When I was in high school we would drive all night to get to nationals from Normal, Illinois!

After getting settled into our rooms and getting a good night rest we had to get right to work.  Our choric group performed first on Wednesday morning.  I had the students up early and warming up.  We performed in the Alumni building as usual and so one of our favorite things to do is to practice on the sidewalk outside.  The air was cool that morning and after a few minutes of warmup we were ready!

I love this picture!  Here is the gang, cool, calm, collected and willing to pose for one last picture before the "big game."  We felt the performance went great and we "hit one out of the park"!! 

After choric was finished I dashed across campus with Hunter and Brooklyn who performed their duet act in Performance Hall.  They did a cutting from "Shadowlands," the story of C.S. and Joy Lewis.  They did a great job as did the reader's theater group and the individuals who performed all throughout the day on Wednesday.  I love competing at this level because everyone is awesome!  I was just proud that my students were there and were rising to the level of this type of competition.  It was a great day of pressure and being stretched to their limits.

After the first round of speech competition on Wednesday it has been our tradition to gather around 5:00 p.m. to wait for the results for those who will continue in the competition by qualifying for the final round of competition.  Here is our group anxiously waiting for the final results to be posted on a kiosk in the Fine Arts Building.  It is a tense time, but excitement is in the air.  Finally, the screen blinks and the results start to be visible.  We all cheer as the Reader's Theatre finalists are shown.

Once again we are on the screen for the next category as well.  These are the only two group categories for speech.  Making it to finals in one of them is an accomplishment, but we were only one of two schools that made it to the finals in both group categories. 

We breathed a sigh of relief and headed to dinner.  Our pressure was temporarily on hold as we were able to enjoy the remainder of the evening knowing that we had one more day of intense competition.  Here are the senior speech students dressed up and ready for the evening service.  They have been such a blessing.  This was the 4th national competition for Hunter and the 3rd for most of the girls. 

I don't even have pictures of the remainder of the competition because we had so much to do.  The groups performed perfectly.  I was not disappointed in the least.  Although we did not place in the top three, we were satisfied that we had done our best and had a great time.

I stayed with the girls in the dorm and the college girls had a party for us on our last night.  What a blessing these three girls were.  I told my friends Jon and Kim Dalton (dean of men at BJU) how well we were treated in the dorm and what fine testimonies these girls were.  Friday morning we packed up and headed home.

After all of the pressure the girls enjoyed playing with the toys in the gift shop at Cracker Barrel when we stopped for lunch.

I don't really know what Hunter is doing here, but I thought it was a good final picture of him with his BJU shirt on.  We still had some drama on the way home.  There was a severe accident that shut the interstate down and we sat still for almost an hour.  Then torrential thunderstorms set in as we were pulling in to our school which made unloading a little challenging.

All in all, it was a wonderful experience and memory for all of us.  I always loved everything about AACS national competition when I was in high school, and so I love facilitating my students to have similar memories of great days in high school.  God was good in giving us safety.  It was worth all of the work. 

Well, now you can await April 2011 -- Part II (to be cont.)

March 2011

March was a month of much schoolwork and long practices preparing for our TACS state competition.  I usually go to Gatlinburg as a sponsor for our honor society, but didn't get to make the trip this year.  Since the event is hosted by TACS, Brian got to go and on his way home he stopped at Pottery Barn in Knoxville.  He received some help and surprised me with some beautiful spring decorations.  I love this centerpiece.  The spring touches lifted our spirits and gave us hope that the long winter would eventually come to an end.

I did get to go to Gatlinburg on March 11 & 12 with one of my teacher friends for the "Dare for More" women's retreat.  The founder and speaker of the retreat is my good friend Reba Bowman.  It was a relaxing, challenging weekend during which I was recharged.  I'm so thankful that I was able to go.

Finally it was time for state competition.  We planned and prepared for this event all year long.  We drove to Murfreesboro and spent the night on Wednesday, March 23.  Elementary and junior high speech competitions were on Thursday.  Although we had a few close calls everyone showed up, performed, and handled the pressures of competition like champions.

Here is the junior high choric speaking group preparing to compete.  Both this group and the junior high reader's theater did very well.  Both groups won first place in state and the reader's theater group got to perform at the Thursday night awards ceremony.  One girl told me she was so nervous to perform in front of everyone.  However when she was up on her box saying her lines she said it hit her that she really loved it.  That's the rush I always had as well. 

On Friday the "Big Dogs" arrived ... senior high speech students.  I was so proud of all of these students.  There were 15 in the choric speaking group and almost everyone competed in at least one other speech category as well.  We had a blast during competition.  We actually have a little "following"...the students told me some ladies asked them when and where they were performing because they came to watch Berean. Both choric speaking and readers theater won first in state.  We also placed first in senior high religious reading, declamation, duet acting and humorous interpretation. 

At the senior high awards assembly on Friday afternoon choric speaking and the girl that won humorous performed.  Our school won the award for overall points in senior high.  What a wonderful time we had and best of all, all 15 students qualified to continue on to the AACS National competition at BJU on April 12-14. 

Thankfully our spring break began as soon as state competition finished.  I needed the week to recover.  We stayed around town, but had a relaxing week.  Brian even took a vacation day.  Although the week went by quickly, I felt much better by the end and then it was time to return to school on April 4.  To be continued ...

April 2011

(I'm almost caught up:)