Who made an impact you your life?

I've talked a lot about what it was like where I grew up and the impact that it had on my life. I thought I would share some pictures from the first 11 years of my life and talk about who made an impact on my life... why and what was so significant about that year.

Not a year goes by that I don't think about Mrs. Kelly, my first grade teacher.

Mrs. Kelly was hard as nails take no prisoners easily the meanest woman that I have ever had the good fortune of missing. I know many nuns at private Catholic schools that thought she was too strict.

In first grade, she demanded excellence. She set the expectation of good penmanship, learning phonics, addition and subtraction by wrote. She expected that we learn the fundamentals that would serve us well the rest of our lives.

She made such an impact in all of our lives that I remember when we graduated from high school we all went back to this elementary school to visit her. She was honestly the only instructor that we went to see.

Cathy, Paul, Jerry, Stacy, Bob - almost the whole class was there... it was amazing. We didn't organize it... we just all kind of showed up at the same time.

She remembered each of us by name and was able to recalled stories about each of us. She made an impact because she loved us and truly cared for what she did...

That's one of the ways that I want to be in my life. I want there to be people that can say I truly cared about their well being and they want to come back and share their successes years down the road.

Bonus prize: Can you pick me out in this picture?