Dear Harper Family

Dear Harper Family,

If I had written this a half century ago there would have been a chance that you might actually receive this letter of thanks. I have reflected many times over the past decades how you Connie Harper, your husband Clinton, and his brother Clifton and sister-in-law Myrtle Harper helped shape my life.

Connie, (since I am now in my eighties, I assume it is okay to refer to you by your first name) you are one of the thousands of heroes of the classroom who helped high school students embrace their lives and strive to be the best they could be.

I have always assumed that you knew me long before I stepped into your English class. I had been working for Clifton and Myrtle Harper at the local weekly newspaper since sixth grade, first as a newsboy delivering the newspaper to the homes of subscribers, and later as an after-school employee helping prepare and print the paper which often included all-nighters on Thursdays when we put the paper to bed. It is reasonable to believe that I was an occasional topic of conversation when you got together as family.

You selected me to be managing editor of the Tide Talk, the school newspaper as a senior. That experience was as valuable as any other class I took in high school. You also sent me to the Leadership Conference over a hundred and fifty miles away at LSU where I got to compete successfully against students from all over the state at writing news stories. It also gave me an opportunity to become familiar with LSU which I selected for college.

Then Clinton, you were working as a printer at a daily newspaper in Shreveport and sold the sports editor on letting me cover our high school sports events for the daily. I learned the value of adjectives and background because they paid by the column inch. A column inch was worth more than an hour’s pay working to print the local newspaper.

Connie, you will perhaps remember when the principal called you to his office to berate you about me and you defended me against negative comments he made about me. I had casually mentioned to another student, which perhaps another teacher had overheard, that perhaps we should get a petition to ask the school to install a few benches around our new school grounds. Apparently, such ideas were subversive.

I don’t know if I ever mentioned it, but he also called me to his office where he suggested that I should not go to college because people like me weren’t needed there. You, of course, were pointing me toward college, and Clifton and Myrtle were contacting their friend who was head of the school of journalism at LSU to get me a job as a student employee at the LSU Printing Office. When I did leave for college, I had a job waiting for me and a new Samsonite suitcase your in-laws gave me as a gift.

Four years later after I had graduated and was in Atlanta applying for a job at CDC, I used you as a reference. I was hired. Some months later my boss volunteered to me that you had written a reference for me that he and the others who read it said was the kind of reference they would all like to get—that I should be very pleased to have a friend and supporter like you.

Well, be assured that I have always valued you as a teacher, a mentor, a friend, and a happy memory.

Clinton, you helped just because you could and I appreciate it. Clifton and Myrtle, you and your newspaper gave me a job, my first pair of glasses that I didn’t even know I needed, summer employment during college, and friendship during some very formative years, and without your ensuring I had a source of income awaiting me at LSU, it is doubtful I would have found my way to Tigerland.

So, Harpers, Thank You. You cleared the path for me and pointed the way.

Cleve