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Schools

Students don hats to support teacher

By EDDY RAMIREZ
Published December 16, 2006

LECANTO - Carolyn Coward would have probably frowned upon students wearing hats in her language arts class. The student dress code bans hats on campus and teachers must enforce the rule.

But Coward was amused and even touched Friday when nearly 1,000 students at Lecanto High School showed up wearing all kinds of hats: sombreros and tiaras, baseball caps and cowboy hats, jester hats and Santa hats.

The students were wearing hats to raise money for Coward and her family.

Coward, who is 36 and was the school's Teacher of the Year in 2006, is battling cancer.

Too weak from the effects of chemotherapy, she is no longer able to teach. She's been home since November, trying to rest and enjoy time alone with her 3-year-old son Chris.

Her husband, Kevin, is now the family's sole breadwinner. Like her, he's a teacher. He works in Tampa.

"What a wonderful surprise," Carolyn Coward said Friday when she learned that students - out of concern for her - had each paid $1 to wear a hat.

By the end of the day, students at the school had raised $1,144. Even those who didn't wear hats reached for their wallets. They gave $1, $5 and even $10 bills. Every student who made a donation got a pink ribbon.

Natalia Burnett, the student body president, said she didn't expect such an overwhelming response from the school when teacher Kenneth Reed pitched the idea.

"It wasn't about the hat," she said. "It was about Mrs. Coward."

Coward was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1999 while she was a teacher in Pinellas schools. Thinking she had beaten the cancer, Coward and her husband moved to Citrus in 2003 to raise a family.

She taught special needs students who struggled with reading at Lecanto High.

Then, in 2005, doctors told her the cancer had returned. It has since spread to her lymph nodes.

Coward said the encouragement from students and colleagues is helping keep her spirits up.

"They know I'm fighting cancer, and they know we're just keeping hope and praying for a miracle," she said.

"When I have rough days, I think of the kindness of people at Lecanto High," she added. "And it really gets me through the days."

Eddy Ramirez can be reached at eramirez@sptimes.com or 860-7305.

[Last modified December 16, 2006, 08:11:33]