Vicki Turner
Miss Mary was filling in for my 3rd-grade teacher for a few minutes one day at East Leesville Elementary School. She engaged us in a rousing show-tune, teaching us the words as we went along--"Hey, look me over, lend me an ear, fresh out of clover, mortgaged up to here!..." I will never forget her energy, her joy, and her total lack of abandon while teaching us the words to this song, words I remember to this day all because she cared enough to teach them. She touched many, many lives in her long career, and mine was one of them. All she needed was ten minutes--that's all it took for her to influence this impressionable third-grader back in the 1960s. I will never forget her.