By Amanda Klare
Beechwood Elementary College
This previous Friday, I discovered that Mrs. Mary Ellen Lucas had handed away on the age of 96. As I learn her obituary, I realized all the main points about her spectacular contributions to public schooling. After retiring with over 40 years of instructing expertise, she then went on to show at Northern Kentucky College and even earned her doctorate in schooling.
Although I wasn’t taught by Mrs. Lucas, I already knew all about this Beechwood instructing legend via the tales of those that had been among the many fortunate ones to have had her for English and/or Social Research. Having devoted over thirty-one years to our district, she touched numerous lives within the Fort Mitchell group. Mrs. Lucas (Mama Luc, as she was known as by her college students) was identified for her kindness, her hugs, and her capacity to attach with every of her college students.
MAry Ellen Lucas with Carol (Stenken) Beirne on the Beechwood Class Reunion in 2017. (Picture supplied)
Once I noticed the obituary, I instantly known as my dad. I grew up listening to my dad telling me concerning the lecturers who had made a distinction in his life; those who cared about him as an individual — Mrs. Lucas was certainly one of my dad’s champions. He mentioned, “Mrs. Lucas is proof which you can be the enjoyable trainer and nonetheless have excessive expectations in your college students. No one ever needed to let Mama Luc down.”
One among Mrs. Lucas’ first college students at Beechwood was Carol Stenken Beirne. “Mary Ellen Lucas got here to Beechwood my freshman yr. She was an vital individual to the category of 1963. I taught college for thirty years due to her. She was a job mannequin for a lot of and cherished by all.”
Michelle White, a Beechwood trainer and a Beechwood alumna, mirrored on the impression that Mrs. Lucas had on her as an individual.
“Mrs. Lucas cherished to inform tales and speak concerning the dolls she made,” she mentioned. “She was the kind of trainer who would drop all the things so we may speak about our lives. Mrs. Lucas obtained on our degree and needed to know the way we had been feeling. She had wonderful classroom management; there was by no means a conduct situation in Mama Luc’s class. We adored her.”
Amanda (Burns) Klare with Mrs. Lucas on the Beechwood Senior Awards Banquet in 2003. (Picture supplied)
As a colleague of Michelle White, I can personally inform you that Michelle embodies these similar nice qualities as a trainer that she realized from her lecturers like Mrs. Lucas.
My mother, a Beechwood graduate of 1981, mentioned that the information of Mrs. Lucas’ passing unfold shortly and it was posted throughout her Fb feed. The theme of the posts was that Mrs. Lucas’ kindness was not forgotten even forty years after graduating. Every publish included former college students sharing recollections of Mrs. Lucas and the impression she had on them.
I graduated from Beechwood in 2003 and at my senior awards banquet, I used to be awarded the Mary Ellen Lucas Scholarship. This scholarship went to a senior who was going into schooling.
I keep in mind standing there, listening to her impart her phrases of knowledge to me in entrance of the big crowd. At that second, eighteen-year-old me didn’t know that in merely 4 years I’d be fortunate sufficient to return to Beechwood as a trainer, however I knew that I needed to be like Mrs. Lucas. I needed to be a champion for every scholar who would stroll via my classroom door. I needed to be the trainer who college students remembered years after having my class. Right here I’m fifteen years into my instructing profession and those self same objectives stay — I all the time need to be that trainer for my college students.
Mrs. Lucas will all the time be remembered. She is the legend who will stay on in all of her college students’ tales. She undoubtedly left the world a greater place simply by being in it.
Amanda Klare is a Hope Avenue Group Kentucky State Trainer Fellow alumna and a trainer at Beechwood Elementary College (Beechwood Unbiased). Klare created and maintains the Northern Kentucky Tribune‘s “Voices From The Classroom” function, which highlights native lecturers and their work to enhance outcomes for college kids. She is a recipient of the 2019 Trainer Achievement Award and was a semifinalist for the 2019 Kentucky Trainer of the Yr award.