Thank you, Mr. Russove

Jack Russove turned my life around. And he did it in his 6th-grade classroom at Benjamin Franklin Elementary School in Manitowoc, Wisconsin.

I entered Mr. Russove’s classroom at a tender point in my life. I was — once again — the new girl in a new school in a new town because of yet another job change by my dad.

As she had done before, my mother collected files from the old school and hand carried them to my new school. Together, we sat down to meet the teacher. A man teacher. In elementary school. In the 1960s.