Thursday was a day of happiness for schoolchildren and teachers alike, but it was also a day for sad goodbyes and a flood of memories.
By LOGAN D. MABE, JAY CRIDLIN and ELISABETH DYER
Published May 28, 2004
[Times photo: Toni Sandys]
Thomas Palmer, 70, gives a high-five to second-grader Danny Wilson as he crosses S Boulevard near Gorrie Elementary after school Thursday. "I'm going to miss these kids," said Palmer, who has been a crossing guard at the Tampa school for four years. Next year, Palmer, an Air Force and post office veteran, will become an area crossing guard supervisor.
TAMPA - Thomas Palmer is waving. Everyone gets a wave. His fluorescent orange-gloved wave is the second most important part of his job as a crossing guard at the bright white crosswalk on S Boulevard near Gorrie Elementary School.
The first most important part is this: "To look after the kids," Palmer says. "They're so innocent."
Palmer, 70, is a fixture on this Hyde Park corner. Morning and afternoon, he stops the same faces, waves to the same drivers intent on their destinations. Even the most harried ones bend to his will and wave back.
Now, after four years of waving and protecting innocents, this is Palmer's last day.
Not just the last day of the school year, but his last day of standing guard over the kids, of waving to the drivers.
Palmer, in his colorful mesh overshirt with bright stripes, gazes across the street at the old brick Gorrie School building. Best school in the county, he says.
He won't be back next year. Palmer will move up to a supervisor position when school starts in the fall. So today, the third most important part of his job will be saying goodbye to all the children who know him simply as "Mr. Crossing Guard."
Palmer served in the Air Force and retired. He worked for the Postal Service and retired. But helping the kids get across the street hasn't been a job as much as it's been Palmer's calling.
"You can really get energized in the morning to come see your kids," he says. "I'm going to miss them, I tell you that. I really am."
* * *
It's 7 a.m. and already break time. Joy Young stands outside Robin Bagamary's yellow school bus in the parking lot of Sickles High as the two chat about the rigors of their profession.
Being a bus driver, a daunting task on the best of days, takes on added pressure on the last day of school.
"It's like rush-rush-rush, drive-drive-drive and hope to heck the kids don't give you a hard time," says Young, who logs 100 to 200 start-and-stop miles a day. "I think we're just as happy as the kids are to be done."
It's a hard job, driving a bus. Lots of responsibility, lots of crowd control, lots of time in rush hour traffic with your flashing stop signs making it worse.
"It takes patience," Bagamary says. "And you've got to like kids, too."
This is what Bagamary knows about patience and liking kids: She gets up school days at 4:30 a.m. to run routes for high school, elementary and middle school kids. Then she goes to her other job cleaning houses for four hours. Then runs those routes in reverse in the afternoon.
The payoff, besides the veteran's pay of about $12 an hour, is this: A student hands Young a pretty, yellow toy bear, like a Beanie Baby, wearing a tag that says, "God Bless Our Bus Driver."
"We're not supposed to accept gifts," Young says. "But how can you say no to a sweet little kid."
* * *
Spicy ground beef and rice, macaroni and cheese, fresh baked bread. These are the things Rosa Savage serves the hungry children who line up for lunch for the last time at Ben Hill Middle School.
"A lot of them tell me how much they enjoy my food," says Savage, who at 80 is retiring after the last tray is served. Born in Charleston, S.C., Savage grew up learning to cook the low-country favorites of the region.
"They don't have that here," she laughs. "I disagree with the menu every day."
Oh, but the kids love it. "She always says, "Give them some more. Let them have as much as they'd like,' " says assistant principal Barbara Ragin. "And she always says, "How can I serve you?' And she always says it with a smile."
Half a lifetime ago, Savage worked for a decade in the cafeteria at Webb Middle School. Then her brother got sick and she took care of him for nine years. But she missed the work.
"I don't like being sluggish, that's not me," Savage says, her bright brown eyes dancing. "I'm an energetic person. I can't stand a slow person. They irk me."
Savage's husband died. Her mother died. Other relatives died. And Savage wasn't going to sit around waiting to be next.
"I had to get out and do something," she says. "I had to go back to work."
That was 21 years - and about 3-million lunches - ago.
* * *
Glenda Midili spends much of her last morning of the school year posing for pictures with her grinning fifth-graders at Claywell Elementary in Northdale.
This is something she has done, counting today, for 36 years. That's a lot of photos.
"For me, it's a very reflective day," said Midili, the school's principal.
Midili likens her school to a garden. The 184 teaching days are her growing season. The students, bursting with the excitement of the coming summer, a sign of another successful harvest.
Each year there are surprises. Students who have struggled finally find themselves, the light of recognition clicks on. Some come back years later, living proof that they made it, that their time spent at Claywell mattered.
"That really is a sweet moment for us," Midili says.
The camera flashes again, smiles framed in time, hearts bound by a place called fifth-grade.
* * *
Year one is in the books at Newsome High School in Lithia. And among the books in Newsome's media center, teachers and staff gather for carrot cake.
As the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah plays overhead, teachers munch on what principal Becky Anderson calls "We-made-it-through-the-year" cake.
"We're real excited about getting out of here," says algebra teacher Yolando Andrews.
Still, not everything is fun and games, especially for many teachers who have yet to grade final exams.
"I've got to clean out my fish tank," says April Rydz, a first-year marine science and chemistry teacher. "How fun does that sound?"
* * *
They hug. Long hugs.
Each and every student in Karen Gwin's fifth-grade class embraces one another - and their teacher - before walking out the door of Brandon's Brooker Elementary for the final time.
"This is the best class I've ever had," says Gwin, whose students will attend middle school next year. "I hate for them to go."
A lot of students struggle with their I-love-yous, and more than a few start sobbing.
"I feel lonely," says a tearful Jessica Acevedo, 11. "I'm gonna miss my friends, and Mrs. Gwin, she's like the best teacher."
"I don't want to leave," says her friend Jalissa Thornton, 10.
"Neither do I," adds Brianna Reddick, 11.
But leave they do, with heads held high. In a longstanding tradition at Brooker, graduating fifth-graders exit the school to thunderous applause from hundreds of students, teachers and parents lining the open-air hallway.
Gwin's students wave nervously on their way to the bus, leaving behind them the day's only class assignment. Each was asked to compose a letter to next year's fifth graders, telling them what to expect in the coming year.
In the letters, as in the final moments they share with their friends, the students aren't afraid to let their true feelings show.
Only 10, Caitlin Holliday wants to pass on the most valuable of lessons: "As a word of advice, be you, and you'll go far."
- Logan D. Mabe can be reached at 269-5304 or at mabe@sptimes.com
