Although thousands of miles apart, the students in Teresa Smith’s classroom are staying close to one very special soldier in Afghanistan, Ricky Beck. Ricky, along with Mrs. Sherry Sport's husband, Michael Sport, left in early September for training in Texas and then departed for Afghanistan in October for an extended stay in that country. Shortly after their departure to Afghanistan, Ricky's wife, Connie, mentioned that she tries to let LHS student Lezlee Beck facetime with her dad at night but it was difficult because of the time difference. Afghanistan is 10 ½ hours ahead of us. Mrs. Smith responded that her classroom’s new iPad had a facetime app on it and wondered if it would work. Mrs. Teresa’s class now spend 2-3 minutes a few days a week communicating with Lezlee’s dad. This experience has brought the students together as little else can. Mr. Ricky tries to speak to each student and they love it! Mr. Ricky always speaks encouragement to the class and it is always the highlight of their day. He even sent the students a beautiful carving for the classroom. Ms. Teresa spoke with Ms. Lisa Adair and Ms. Sandy Owens about this opportunity and they suggested the school participate in sending them a care package for the holidays. With the help of HOSA and several classrooms, LHS collected over 300 pictures, letters, and cards along with lots of candy, cookies, can-goods and toiletries to send them. In our preparation for this event, it was discovered one of the kindergarten student’s mom and former student of Luverne School, Nolita Harris, was working as a civilian in Afghanistan. So LHS sent her a care package too! Thanks to technology, even if Lezlee’s dad is in another country, she can still see him frequently. We want to publicly thank all of our service men and women for keeping our country safe, especially those from home!
