
A teacher who had a tremendous impact on my life was Jerry Pryor, who taught me French from 1984-1986 in Windsor, NL at W. Bramwell Booth Memorial High School.
Mr. Pryor always made me feel that I was capable of doing anything with my life and that was the foundation on which my self confidence was built.
I still carry a favorite memory of him with me every time I sign my name. At some point during high school, I stopped going by the name “Debbie” and preferred to be called “Deb.” Every time I submitted a paper, test or assignment to Mr. Pryor, I would write my name on it as “Deb.” And every single time I got it back, he would have added “bie” to the end in red pen. He would tell me “Life is too short, don’t be in a hurry to grow up Debbie.”
Tragically, Mr. Pryor and his wife were killed in a motorcycle accident on August 31, 2015. Ironically, I had searched him on Facebook just a couple weeks before that.
I don’t know if he had ever known how much of an impact he had on me as a teenager . . . I like to think he did.