Educators honored for guiding hands

Letter to the Editor,

Drive down to Clark Township in Holmes County to see the idyllic beauty of the Lee and Phyllis Debnar family farm along the crystal-clear waters of Mill Creek that meanders through this idyllic valley dappled with ponds all along. Phyllis has been one of Ohio’s premier special-education specialists. She served for many years at the Holmes County Training Center. Her expertise spilled over also into our local school districts.

Thank you for your guiding hand in helping better meet the needs of special children. And on the personal side, thank you, Phyllis, for the kind words you sent me after you read my article, “With Thanks for the Iris,” that had appeared in the local paper.

And recently in Wooster, I dropped in at Tri-County Educational Service Center to give my greetings to Kris Hites-Perone, who had served with distinction as superintendent of West Holmes Local Schools and most recently as assistant superintendent at Tri-County. This year would be her last, she told me.

Thank you, Kris, for the guiding hand you gave to professional staff working under you and the ripple effect that had upon the lives of children. You have left your footprint.

Then at Danbury in Millersburg, I found Lucille Hastings, who spread her expertise and her bigness of heart over West Holmes, and that extended itself in various ways over various roles she played in the county. That day I found still her magnanimous spirit, a graciousness. She spread her influence also over Ohio as she sat on the Ohio Reading Circle Board. Thank you for your guiding hand in that role.

Thank you, Lucille, for the footprint you have left on the hearts of many.

This trio of three leave, in the words of Longfellow, their “footprints on the sands of time,” their lives still “green with boughs,” as lordly cedars, borrowing from Markham’s words of Lincoln, “He went down as when a lordly cedar, green with boughs, goes down with a great shout upon the hills and leaves a lonesome place against the sky.”

Paul A. Stutzman

Millersburg

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