Second Degree Stories to Write Up

  

2006

•   June 1, 2006: I sent an email to Rhonda with a link to the photos of snow in Reno. She writes back, "Funny...I was reading some of your 5 degrees of TLO and recognized Cathy Gilberg's name. Her son, David, played on Bradley's basketball team for several years. Bill coached it. I imagine it is the same Cathy Gilberg since she also has a daughter. David goes to St. Mark's."

2005

September 2005: At a meeting of On the Road to Silver and Gold, Theresa notices that Brynne Garrison is wearing a "Purple Power" shirt from Vines High School. Normally, Theresa wouldn't remember Kyley's school, but Kyley had just worn a Purple Power shirt not too long ago at choir practice, plus, Theresa had just been to a concert and the name of the school was on the program. So Theresa asked Brynne, "Do you know Kyley DeYoung?" Even though Vines is really big, they both happen to be on student council. Brynne is an officer, Kyley just joined, but we figured it out. So I asked Brynne to tell me something about student council that I could ask Kyley about. She told me all about their latest student council activity. The next time I saw Kyley, I asked her, "So, when you were hanging spirit posters on D-hall, did you decide to take down the red crosses or put your posters on top of them?" Was she ever surprised!

August 2005: Gerald and Theresa go to lunch in the Union, run into Dr. Samantha Hastings and big group of new doc students in the ILS program. We join them for lunch and get to talking. One of them is in the State Library system for Nevada. She works with Jacque Ewing-Taylor's friend who is the head of the State Archives that I had met at a dinner at Jacque's house.

May 5, 2005, Theresa and Bridget are talking over dinner (with Romona and Dana) and figure out that Bridget plays piano at St. Gabriel Catholic Church and knows Father Greg Kelly who was at All Saints in the early 1980's.

 2004

November 2004: Theresa was talking to her students about their final project and demonstrated 3 projects from prior years. When Theresa pulled up Jon's soccer project (from fall 2001), which happened to have his full name on the front page (most of them don't identify themselves on their project), one of the students said, "That's my boyfriend's brother. When we did our last assignment where we had to find resources for a teacher that we know or pick one from your list, I found resources for him." Whooop!!! Theresa has over 300 final projects from which to choose and she picked his... and she not only knows him, but worked with him on her last assignment!

Fall 2004: Tara, a student in CECS 4100, found out her boyfriend went to Lamplighter (he had a reunion announcement on his refrigerator) so she asked me if Theresa had taught him. It was Robert McGraw...Theresa taught him and his brother and sister and babysat all of them, too.

2003

June 2003: Theresa takes favorite astronomy book on campout to share with fellow campers on the annual choir campout at Beavers' Bend State Park in Oklahoma. One of the campers (Steve Swanson) sees the book and explains that he is cousin to the author.

2002

Gerald and Norah Kizer Bell

1990's

1999?: Theresa and her major professor, Gerald Knezek are talking about being students and about Hollins when Gerald says, "You know, you stole our dean of students from Dartmouth." He was good friends with Carroll Brewster who became president of Hollins while Theresa was there. Gerald and some friends even came to Hollins to visit Carroll. We're pretty sure Gerald visited Hollins during the time that Theresa was an undergraduate. 

year unknown

200x: Driving back to Waxahachie from a workshop with co-presenter Jennifer Smolka, Theresa says, "When we get to your house, I really need to look up my old roommate and her husband that live in Waxahachie. I always say I'm going to go visit them and meet their kids and I never do." So Theresa looks up the address in her address book and asks Jennifer, "Do you know where so-and-so street is?" She says, "Yes I do. What is your friend's name?" When Theresa tells her, Jennifer says, "I know her, Donna's the woman who's on the auction committee with me that I was telling you was so wonderful. Our kids go to the same school and we go to the same church."

Lamplighter mom whose mom and grandmother were friends with Mother and Dede at Sidwell Friends and whose daughter was in the second grade class that Theresa took over in the middle of the year (LL student: Sarah Gillette, her mom: Susan Grier (kept her maiden name). We knew each other in Girl Scouts but it wasn't until the letter went out to parents announcing that Penny Pierce and Theresa would be the new teachers and her mom was visiting and saw the letter that hte connection was finally made. When they enrolled in Lamplighter three or more years earlier, the grandmother said "That's the school that Patricia's daughter works at" but Susan didn't follow up on it very much.

A student in CECS 4100 is nanny/babysitter to Lamplighter sisters; older sister was in Theresa's last third grade and was in Topocam Math Club.

Theresa is in the office of a research assistant in the grants office at UNT (Rick Croley) and notices his UTD Physics Ph.D. on the wall). "Do you know Paul Macalevey?" she asks. Yes he does! Paul sings in the choir at church with Theresa. Rick and Paul had several classes together at UTD.

Theresa's talking to the mom of one of her Lamplighter students, Hunter Banks, and something comes up about her sister-in-law Patsy Short who used to be in Theresa's choir. Cool! There's second degree exhibit A. Next time they're talking she mentions Hunter younger sister Katie; suddenly Theresa realizes that Hunter's sister is the "baby Katie" that Patsy had been asking the choir to pray for on a regular basis almost 3 years earlier.

Betty Bourgeious, principal at Ursuline, hires Susan McGinnis (daughter of Julie McGinnis at Lamplighter and someone that Theresa stayed with when her parents were out of town when she was in high school) to work for her. Somehow in a discussion between Betty and Susan, they figured out they knew me and when I see Betty for the first time in years at a fundraiser for The Pines she remembers the story and tells me.

Theresa is talking to one of her 4100 students about a project and they get to chatting about lots of other things. The student gives Theresa her business card and when Theresa sees that it says "Lacerte Co." she says, "I thought Lacerte Software got bought out by Intuit." The student replies, "They did. I can't believe you know of the company. Lacerte Co. is Larry's next company after he sold the software company. How do you know about Lacerte?" Larry's students went to Lamplighter many years ago. Also, Larry sent his top programmer to help Lamplighter create a custom database for the school. Theresa worked closely with Andy Ahle for 4 years at Lamplighter while she was computer coordinator. The student said that Andy had stayed at Intuit for about a year and then quit and was now working at Lacerte Co. She gave Theresa the contact info and Theresa emailed Andy and they went out to lunch and got caught up with each other.