To my mentor Mrs. Clark: the reason I now constantly correct punctuation, spelling and grammar at my restaurant...is because of you. The table in my kitchen will, from now on, have one empty chair (with a PBS coffee mug).

When I entered Mrs. Clark's 7th grade English class, I could not have imagined the people I was going to meet. After an amazing experience in 6th grade learning about Mrs. Clark's childhood while also learning correct punctuation with her Punc Cap, I walked away from 7th grade English having met one of the most compelling characters in all of literature: Scout Finch of To Kill a Mockingbird. It was because of Mrs. Clark that I was exposed to one of the greatest novels of all time, and that I also experienced the worlds of Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker and Francie in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by far the longest novel my 7th grade self had ever read. Besides introducing us girls to these wonderful people, Mrs. Clark was and is an amazing person, and so much fun. Her obsession with pigs, even leading her to name her black lab puppy Babe, was all her own. I am thankful that I was just in time and a part of the second to last class of middle school girls to experience two years of Mrs. Clark's English class.

I don't think any of Mrs. Clark's students could forget her. My friends and I will never forget her hamper of pink pigs which we were able to "adopt" for a class period, or her numerous stories from her childhood, which she used to teach us "punc-cap"(including the saga of the ice pick, or the delivery of deodorant to an unfortunate girl in her class).

Mrs. Clark's ingenious set of "punc-cap" exercises, detailing the ongoing saga of her own childhood highjinks in Macon, Georgia, is among my favorite middle school memories. I couldn't wait for the next installment!

Betsy Clark, who taught me middle school english, really pushed me to write correctly, and she is the one I credit with my current writing ability.