I feel so privileged to have met so many amazing people during my life at OU. Let me tell you some of my favorites from my early years there. They soon began to give PhD students to me--many of them internationals! How cool is that. I was thrilled. They were such hard workers.....and they knew I wasn't an easy prof. Working through the D word (dissertation) was challenging. But I loved my students' perseverance and patience. We had them into our home as often as we could. My first doc student was Daniela, here with her husband and baby. Daniela was from Hungary, had married a Canadian, and was brilliant. She writes beautiful poetry today.
Khaloun was next and he was from Jordan. Then came Chin-Cheng from Taiwan, then Zubaidah from Malaysia, Pei-lin from Taiwan and Chanpen from Thailand. In between I also had amazing US PhD students like Lettie, Julie and Nadia. We not only worked together, we attended and presented at conferences together. Lettie and Julie became inseparable. I called them the marshmallow twins as they purchased matching puffy white jackets at one conference we went to. One of my joys today is to see how they continue too pursue the impartation and love of learning. My greatest joy is to see those who came alongside to follow Jesus. Lettie is now with Jesus, with a greater joy.
OK, so those were a few of my PhD students. I also had masters students and hundreds of undergrads. Even before I got involved in school partnership work, I found it so much fun to work together with students to research areas of great importance, and to publish together. Here's a group of students who helped me research the character qualities demonstrated in ALL of the Newbery award winning medal books. It was a long and hard job, but our findings were very important. We, too, went to conferences and presented these findings. Here you see Nadia, Deeder, me, Darlene, Betsy. and Julia.
Many became close, life-long friends.The top photo below are Keith and Darlene Wasserman, and their son Timothy, people we've admired over the years, as they lead the only work among the homeless of southeast Ohio. If you ever want a worthy place to make a donation, Good Works is one. Others were soon included as life-long friends.
In the middle photo below is Alice-Blake-Stalker, who welcomed us into her home when we arrived in Athens. Here in the photo we were presenting at a conference in Hawaii. They welcomed us with leis!
In the bottom photo below is Sharon Parsons; she and I began a friendship work together at East Elementary in Logan, and then moved south to Chauncey Elementary after a couple years, where she was principal for many years. She and Tom are still good friends. I had so many great friends and colleagues.
Of course, I've already talked about our life-long next-door neighbors Steve and Joan Safran. Joan was one of my first suite-mates on the second floor of McCracken, so I lived next-door to her in town, and at home. We became fast friends.
Some unique friends that became interwoven in my research studies were children's book authors. Bruce Degan and Joanna Cole, authors of the Magic School Bus series, answered my questions about their mystery genre works that made kids interested in science. I published several major studies to validate that. And I took my students to hear and meet them. Sometimes I enjoyed a meal with them. I attended a Children's Highlights conference with Sharon Creech, author of Walk Two Moons and other award winning books, too. My students especially loved meeting and talking with Gary Paulsen, author of the Hatchet series, and so many other books.
Then there were more visits with my famous young friends Michael and Maeghan Kearney, the genius kids. Their parents, Kevin and Cassidy, came too. Their parents wrote a book about them called The Accidental Genius.
A recent photo connects this distant past to the present. Last month I had the joy of being shown around the new and remodeled McCracken building where I used to teach. It's beautiful! But the most beautiful part was being shown around by two of my former doctoral students, Susan Nolan and Julie Francis, both who now teach and work for OU. Susan is an Associate Lecturer, and Julie just recently moved back from Rhode Island to accept the position of Director for the new Ed Stevens Literacy Center in McCracken Hall. I will be donating my collection of award winning children's books to this Center to see that these great books find their way into more children's lives and hearts.
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