In a person’s career there are so many things that happen to us. Some of the learning events we always remember, and some slip our mind. When teaching students, things always happen. I occasionally would ask a student for his/her signature, they would have this question mark look, I would joke and say that maybe one day you will be famous and I will have your autograph. I always got his crazy look back at me. I have had two students that have made Oklahoman news more than once in good ways.

Oddly enough, the first person was the very first student in my grade book when I began teaching at Duncan Junior High. I replaced a lady that was teaching eight grade math. She already had the grade book made out for me. The very first hour, at the top of the list was the name, Jari Askins. She was an excellent student; me, just a greenhorn teacher. She later became Lieutenant Governor of Oklahoma and served in other places of State Government. Years later she was the Keynote Speaker at an Educational Event for Veterans. After she was finished speaking, I went to her, told of our connection and apologized for my weakness as a beginning teacher. She just laughed and said she always enjoyed my class. The second student I will write of later.

While still teaching at Duncan, one fall when Halloween rolled around, the morning after Halloween, Loretta and I started to leave for school, everywhere on all the shrubs and trees of our yard was tissue paper. Someone had been TP’ing our house the night before. That day at school, I never said anything about it. Finally, during the last period, a student raises their hand and tells something about what happened at our house. I explained what happened and said something to the effect that whoever did it, could have at least left the piece of cardboard that came with the tissue. I should have just kept quiet. When we leave for school the next morning, the storm door is a little hard to open. After getting it open, I find this little round piece of cardboard, look around and see that our yard has been struck again.

The first year I taught at Harrah, I had an excellent group of senior boys in my Physics class. One day in January I told the group that the next day was our wedding anniversary. Nothing more said other than how many years Loretta and I had been married. The next morning when I unlocked my room, sitting on my desk with a big red bow on it was a bottle of champagne. Being a first-year teacher there, not fully understanding the Polish traditions, I quickly put the bottle in the chemical storeroom. I’ll not mention the name, but the student’s father had a liquor store, and he helped himself to give me a gift. That’s been since 1971, guess what the former student is doing today? He has been successful at many different things, but today he owns a liquor store near the Country Boy location south of Harrah.

In 1968-69 I drove to Crowder, Oklahoma and taught students there. It’s a very long drive from Allen, but I enjoyed my year there. I did have this eighth-grade science class that whenever a test was given, the students always wanted to ask questions. This one time I instructed the class if they had questions to ask them before I handed out the test, no questions after the test started. About five minutes after the test began, this one student raised his hand to ask something, I repeated my previous statement about no questions. Five minutes later, the same student raised his hand again. I told him the same thing as before. The class finished the test with no more questions. Later that day when grading the class tests, I noticed that the student that kept raising his hand had made a score of 100%. This was unusual for him. He generally made in the 70’s for a per cent score. I recorded all the scores. The next day after handing back the tests, I asked the young man how he did so good on the test. He pulled out of his book my answer key to the test all in red markings, he told me, “I tried to tell you, but you would not let me talk”. I let him keep the 100% test, sometimes hard fast rules come back to haunt you.

In 1979-80 school year I taught students at Stonewall, Oklahoma. It was a good system and I knew a few families there from relatives and just growing up in the surrounding area. I had this one chemistry class the last period of the day. I later began calling it, my marriage class. There were two boys and three girls. The coming summer all of the girls were going to get married. I did my best to present my instruction of chemistry, give some homework, let them have time in class to complete it. I was there to help if needed. It seemed like almost every time, if I wasn’t right there, the three girls would start visiting about their wedding plans.

One day one of the guys was gone to East Central University to go and visit the math department. He was trying to get a scholarship. The next day in class he tells me, “I’m never going to a doctor again.” I ask him to explain. He proceeded to tell me that in his short lifetime, he had gone at different times to see three different doctors and in less than a week all had died. The day before he had seen Dr. Danley, Chairman of the Math department at East Central, and Dr. Danley lost his life in a motorcycle accident that night. That was no real explaining to do, how do you explain things like that? The young man did not pursue mathematics, but has been a success at several endeavors.

In the spring of 1983 at Allen High School, I had an Algebra II class consisting of juniors and seniors. One morning I was going to give a test that did require the use of a calculator. After the bell rang and I was about to hand out the test, Brent Bain asked if he could go get his calculator. Since we were close to his locker, no problem, so I said yes, handed out the test and everyone started to work. After a few minutes I began to wonder about Brent and why he was taking so long. Finally, he comes in and I began to ask what took so long. He said, “well I went home and got my calculator.” I thought I just wasn’t clear enough, we both assumed too much. No harm, he’s back and only lived a one-half mile south on Highway 48. Since Brent is an agriculture teacher and he told me that he uses this story sometimes in his teaching. I know he won’t care if I write this and use his name.

Another time in the mid to late 80’s I had another algebra class that was mixed with juniors and seniors. This particular Friday happened to be our first home football game of the season. About ten minutes until the noon bell, this male student comes to my desk and asks to go to the bathroom. I let him go and after he was gone too long, two sisters asked me where he went. I told them he went to see a man about a dog. They of course had this funny look and wanted to know what I was talking about. I explained to them about when men and women were both working in the field, if a man needed to go to the bathroom, he would not say bathroom, just that he needed to go see a man about a dog. They could not imagine something that simple. About that time, I look in the doorway, there is my missing student with a man that has a dog with a leash on it. The man has on an Allen Mustang football jersey and the dog has a cloth covering with the word, Mustangs. I turn, look at the two girls and tell them, “where did I tell you he went?” It was so funny. The man was the new Minister at the Bethel Free Will Baptist Church.

In 1997 I had already made up my mind to retire the next fall when my birthday rolled around in late October. I had seen three men in their early 50’s die. I was of the thought that I wanted to do other things. I had also developed a hearing problem. When you correct a student on the left side of the room and the student who did the act is on the right side of the room, it’s time to get out.

I had this science class, it was toward the last two weeks of school, I was doing my best to not be a “short timer”. While teaching class and trying to keep them interested, a Native American student said to me, “Mr. Borders, you just need to Chill Out.” I told him that if I did that, then utter chaos would happen. This student was Sterling Harjo. Sterling completed high school at Holdenville and has become a great movie producer. He has produced several Native American movies and a television series called, Reservation Dogs. After my retirement, I have now learned how to Chill Out.

Those two students may be my most famous students, but not necessarily what I would call my best. Several of the current teachers at Allen I have had as students. The Allen school has many workers, both teachers and staff, that graduated from Allen. Allen schools has always been good at hiring students that were graduates from there. There is somewhere around twenty Allen School graduates working there now.

I cannot stop this article without mentioning one of my best students ever, Lesli (Bullard) Costner. I was privileged to have Lesli in about every subject I taught, ranging from eight grade science, advanced math to physics. I also was able to work with her at Holdenville High School as we both taught students there. She is an outstanding person and educator.

Enough of this school talk, It’s spring, time for a break!!