Give in Honor of a Teacher or Coach

Many alumni share with us stories of faculty members – teachers, coaches, college counselors, staff and others – who profoundly influenced the direction of their lives.

We encourage you to honor their impact with gifts to the Woodward Alumni Fund.
All gifts support financial aid for today’s Woodward students.

Below are some inspirational stories recently sent to the Alumni Office. If you would like us to share your memories of special faculty/staff members, email  alumni@woodward.edu .

Robert W. Schorr '56

Col. Dean H. Russell, Geometry teacher, GMA '50s,  was my most memorable teacher (high school, college, Air Force Navigator training, and graduate school). Wrongly perceived as harsh, tyranical, intimitating, and xenophobic, he  made Geometry an adventure into LOGIC by leading cadets into clear and effective thinking, speaking, and writing. He demanded closure on every class discussion, homework assignment, theorum and corollary. He pushed us beyond our imagined limits. He would not allow a cadet to fail!
I graduated into an uncertain world with a profound sense of confidence, self-reliance, responsibility, dependability, and ...PRIDE (Personal Responsibility In Daily Endeavors). I'm forever indebted to Colonel Russell. His stern demeanor and exacting demands created an enduring commitment to excellence.

Joe Serrato '69

My favorite teacher was Major Carl Thelander. He made math come to life for me. In one instance we were working on a solution to a problem and he asked me if I had the answer. I was not yet finished and I said: "I am trying". He replied: "Mr Serrato, you are very trying, but what is the answer". In the late sixties we had just made the transition from GMA and we still had a military bearing. We had strict dress codes and I sometimes pushed the edge of the envelope. We were to wear white dress shirts and a tie with our grey slacks and our blazers, either color coded class or navy blue school colors. I once wore a white IZOD shirt with a tie. Thelander was the only teacher to write me up. I wore a tux shirt with a black bowtie and a cumberbund with my dark grey slacks and a blue blazer on another occasion and once again Thelander wrote me up but he was trying to supprese his amusement the entire time. He was the most gifted teacher I ever had in my entire life and I saw through his hard edge very early on. He understood that I had his number and we both enjoyed verbal jabs. 

Lew Rice '60

Last month, I visited our campus for the first time in 50 years--what a treat. I wish my memory was better because I did meet and talk with two of your faculty while walking on the new, expanded, improved and glorious campus. Wow!!!!!

In memory of Col. D.H. Russell who taught me geometry: I hated math, but he made it interesting and fun. He had a nickname for everyone. Mine was "afterthought" because my initials were ATJ.

Also in honor of Helen Shean, who taught my sons Andy Jones '98 and Matt Jones '01. They knew how to write when they finished her class. Andy is a doctor, and Matt is an attorney.

Billy Dabney '01

I would like to share my gratitude for Coach Chris Freer (now Dean Freer). When I was in high school, Coach Freer was the football special teams coach and taught history (1997-2001). To say I was a handful as a student, when I was 15 to 18, would be an understatement. I received detention hours like Ron Artest receives technical fouls. I slacked off in academics and was definite in my behavior. Not many teachers knew how to handle a young man such as myself, but Coach Freer did. Even though I received detentions and sometimes a stern talking-to from him, he never stopped telling me that I was better than I was acting. He never stopped expecting better from me. As a teenager, I just wanted him to leave me alone. I wanted him to give up on me, but he wouldn’t. I remember he would always take time to tell me that I could be successful if I wanted to be. That still sticks with me today. Because of Headmaster Lineberry’s mercy, I graduated from Woodward in 2001. I went through many life changes right after I graduated Woodward, and remembering that people like Coach Freer believed in me helped me start a life as successful person, capable of great things. Now I am 28 and about to start a PhD program at LSU, where I have earned two other degrees. I am so grateful that Coach Freer did not give up on me. I owe him a great deal.

Todd Sentell '79

When I was in 10th grade, I had literature for 6th period, and it just about killed me. The moment I walked into sixth period on the first day of school, I knew we were going to get into enormous quantities of trouble instead of learning enormous quantities about literature. I was really excited.

All the 10th grade misfits had been perfectly assembled—plus some new girl I didn’t know who already looked terrified. One kid in the class, a kid named Jerry, had always given me the impression he was a caged animal but looked like a human 10th grader. Then there was our class nerd, Jim, who was short and stubby, over in the front corner with his goofy briefcase we always stole from him and put on the top of a brick wall so he couldn’t get it. He always tried really hard to get it and he was always late for class.  Every day.

I had no idea how you learned about literature. I figured you borrowed the Cliffs Notes from an 11th grader. And, from looking at this teacher with his mismatched shirt and tie and baggie pants and clodhoppers that looked like they saw action at Gettysburg, that’s when I knew I could get some good sleep before football practice.

Our teacher, Mr. Errol Sanders, passed out the book we were going to study. It was a book about two street urchins who float down the Mississippi River on a log raft. Oh, boy ... we were going to learn the deeper literary meaning of why two street urchins would want to float down the Mississippi River on a log raft written by a guy who was using a fake name. I wondered how much money my parents were paying for me to go to this nice school.

Mr. Sanders taught the book by standing in front of the class while he read from the book word for word-for-word. He never wrote anything on the chalkboard. He had three posters on the cinderblock walls. That was it. It was old school.

While he was reading, every once in a while he’d stop and lift his head and pontificate about the literary significance of something in the story, like a cow. Then, every once in a while, Mr. Sanders would stop and ask us what we thought of what he just read. We’d wake up and look at each other and giggle. You could tell Mr. Sanders thought the school wasn’t paying him enough money to teach at this nice school.

After about two days, we got to the point where we had had enough of the deeper literary meaning of some dumb book written 400 years ago and we needed some real excitement in Mr. Sanders’ sixth period literature class. So, I enthusiastically concocted a plan where Jerry, who was a fearless running back on the junior varsity football team, was to run across the room and jump up in the air and fly in the air for a good while and then dive on Jim, and they would go tumbling onto the floor. Several of us agreed that was a wonderful plan to liven up sixth period literature class. We really loved the plan’s elegant simplicity.

I remember Jerry asked me if I wanted him to do it while Mr. Sanders was reading from the book.  Jerry was serious. I told Jerry, very slowly, with mild hand gestures so I wouldn't spook him, that we wanted him to jump on Jim the next time Mr. Sanders left the room. No one thought to volunteer for the role of locking the door behind Mr. Sanders while we partied.

So the day came where Mr. Sanders was doing his usual—reading from the dumb book, word-for-word-for-dang-word—and all of a sudden he says he’ll be right back. It was almost as if Mr. Sanders was in on it. He didn’t say why he was leaving the classroom. He just walked out the door ... with the book in his hand. I figured Mr. Sanders had to go to the toilet. I know I did. Without thinking, because Jerry was an action man and not a thinking man, Jerry instantly leaped out of his desk and started running across the front of the classroom toward Jim. On that day, however, Jim had brought with him a huge bottle of cough syrup and he had it standing up on his desk. Jerry grabbed the desk, with Jim in it, and flipped it over and then jumped on Jim as if Jim was on fire and Jerry was saving him. That glass bottle containing a whole lot of cherry-colored cough syrup broke and a whole lot of syrup and broken glass got on the desk and on Jerry and Jim and into Mr. Sanders’ groovy shag carpet.

I jumped up into the aisle by my desk and started juking my arms around like an uncaged baboon. I felt wonderful. That new girl lowered her head and scrunched her shoulders up and seemed to be wanting to evaporate. The rest of us, in nice grey slacks and black Weejuns and button-down shirts and nice rep ties and navy blue blazers with the crest of one of the finest college preparatory schools in the United States of America on the left breast pocket, went nuts.

Mr. Sanders walked back in, accurately analyzed the scene in one millionth of a second, and then headed down the aisle … toward me. I noticed his face was very red and he was baring his teeth and his eyebrows were way up on his forehead and his eyes were real big, and Mr. Sanders was saying some awful things about me personally while spit was flying out of his sandwich hole.

Everybody else was screaming, too, but with a sense of fun and joy. Jerry and Jim were still squirming around on the carpet in the cough syrup in their blue school blazers. I convinced Mr. Sanders to not pull off my arms and legs and head. I also ended up committing unexpectedly to Mr. Sanders that "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" was the greatest book ever written in the world and that Mark Twain knew things. This seemed to calm him.

In 12th grade, I had Mr. Sanders again for literature. I think it was second period. He read Flannery O’Connor stories to us, word-for-word, which was fine with me because Jerry finally got kicked out of school and now I was the class president and a member of the honor council and I was flying straight and wanted to get into a decent college. Mr. Sanders said one story of hers was really going to affect you. He read it. It did.

At the moment of grace in "A Good Man is Hard to Find," I discovered what I thought might be my calling—good typing. More than 30 years later, my first novel got published. Of course, I dedicated it to Mr. Sanders.

John Winchester '65

Major Watkins - English literature:  I remember him reading "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight." A character died, and Major Watkins shouted “he kicked the bucket” and kicked the waste basket across the room. That seemed to wake everyone up and keep us focused.

Mrs. Bobby Alford - English: She taught us how to organize a paper. I still teach my grandchildren, nieces and nephews the same organization. It really works.

Major Thelander - math:  He kept me from being kicked out of school. He checked up on me to be sure that I was studying.

Col. Burnett: I could sign his name better than he could. None of my signed passes were ever questioned, but his were.

Major Hays - Band: He allowed me to stay in the band to keep me out of trouble, and I could march but playing in tune was not me.

Col. Brewster put up with all of the aggravation we dealt out.

Shannon Sheesley '05

Math was never a strong course for me throughout school, but once I was in Mrs. Sandy Adamek’s class senior year, that all changed. She approached teaching in a way that I had never seen or experienced before. Something clicked with her, and I can say that I enjoyed every moment of those days in her class. I remember the first day walking into her class and seeing all these posters on the wall. Before we did anything, she told us to go ahead and take some time then to look at and read all of the posters so we would not have an excuse to be distracted when class actually started! Even after I graduated, I still kept in contact with her, and she even helped me through my entry level math classes in college. I helped her make boxes on several occasions to send overseas to the troops. That was, and still is, one of the most rewarding things I have done. She has such a giving and warm heart that everyone feels welcome and loved when you are around her. She always has a smile, wants to know all the updates on life, and I always look forward to the big bear hugs every time I see her! I will always carry her wisdom and encouragement everywhere life takes me as a constant reminder to keep my head up and keep pushing on, no matter the circumstances.