My letter to my favorite teacher, Mr Dennis Cone

You know, I think that most of us have had a favorite teacher. The leader of that one class that we could look forward to every day. But Mr. Cone, it takes a VERY special teacher to invoke the kind of fierce loyalty, love and devotion that you have received from so many students for so many years! You have a way of making each of us feel special. Your humor, your infectious love and passion for music, your talent for making our choirs SO fun and successful, were reason enough for your students to adore you. But you took it a step further by taking an interest in your individual students. We all KNEW without a doubt that you cared about us.

I count myself among the EXTREMELY blessed. I was able to have Uncle Dennis as my friend, teacher and mentor for Five years! At Starrett in the cafeteria every morning, watching as you patiently (oh yes, you were SOOO patient) trying to get those squirrelly Jr. High students to concentrate on your vision. One of the greatest days was when you hurdled the first row of singers, grabbed Wade Alexander, pushed him all the way back while he was still in his chair, and convinced him that some better behavior might be in order. I was a bit worried for you because I had never truly seen that shade of red before, and that was the first time (sadly not the last) that I saw the vein on your temple throbbing. It was also in Jr High that I discovered how much I wanted to make you proud. You discovered that I could read music and seemed genuinely pleased. I was thrilled that I had made you happy, and I was devoted to you from that time forth.

In HS I always had at least two choir classes. I majored in singing and found such joy in it. You helped us all to feel pride in what we were doing. Valley Singers were ALWAYS elite! We wanted to make you proud and you worked so hard to show us who we could become. We drove you nuts, we teased you, we bribed you with candy if we were tardy, and we loved you more than you will ever know.

We loved preparing for our concerts because that's when lovely Lucy would come and play for us so you could concentrate fully on your choirs. She was amazing and read you like a book. She knew where you wanted to start before you did, she was like an extension of you! You two were the "ConeCreature", reading each other's minds and knowing exactly what to do to mold all these goobs into a fantastic singing group. I especially loved when Lucy brought Molly so we could pack her around and spoil her. Unfortunately we didn't get her very often (what? she wasn't distracting us!).

Do you know what is most incredible? The fact that your influence on me carried through the years to my beautiful daughter Kelsie. I was able to cultivate a love of music in her just as you did in me. I was able to recognize her talent and encourage her, just as you did me. Kelsie sang her very first solo (on a stage in front of 100s of people) when she was 8 years old. I was able to instill confidence in her and she was bitten by the performance bug. I took her (and her brothers) through several school and church plays and talent shows for the next 6 or 7 years until she got to HS. Then guess what happened!? She found her very own Mr. Cone (only his name is Mr. Haug)! He took over for me and took her to new heights in an amazing show choir, and he allowed me to tag along and sell tickets and spearhead fundraisers ;].

Congratulations to you and Lucy on your "retirement". I put the word in quotes because I know you two well enough to know that you won't slow down. You two will always be pillars in the community in whatever you do. How wonderful it must be for you to know that you have touched the lives of thousands of people in such a positive way! What an incredible feeling that must be!

Thank God for you Mr. Cone! I shudder to think of what my life (or the life of my family) might have been like if you had not been around to show me what a joy music is. I will NEVER be able to thank you enough for the difference you've made. None of us will be able to. But please at least know how incredibly important you are to Kelly (Girl) Smith class of '85. YOU made my HS days wonderful and I truly love you so much!

Love and Devotion Forever,


Kelly Lee Smith '85

Starrett Jr High 8th grade choir
LVHS Concert choir
LVHS Girls Select Choir
LVHS Valley Singers
"The Unsinkable Molly Brown"
"Finnian's Rainbow"
Winter Fair Queen Pageant

Holy Smokes you musta been SO VERY sick of me!! ;]

I love it when I'm reminded of what a nurturing and wonderful caregiver I am. =]

I was talking to Caleb tonight about how being a nursery leader in church is VERY trying for me at times. Short explanation...I am having some pretty severe withdrawal symptoms as a result of cold turkeying a prescription med. Anyhoo, I was telling him how we have a few screamers at the beginning of the class and I'll do almost anything to shut these little creatures up. Their crying slices thru my eardrums and then rolls through my brain on an electric storm. It truly sends me into what I call a neural overload and makes me panic.

Caleb then proceeded to tell me that it was a DANG good thing I wasn't involved in cub scouts anymore or I would probably be in jail. Now Honestly, the events of the story I'm about to tell you didn't make as much of an impact on me as it did on Caleb. Oh, he remembers it with great glee...

About 6 years ago I found myself running a particular activity at our annual Cub Scout Day Camp. I think I was just teaching them a few different games that pioneer children played. I enlisted the help of Caleb and Kolby that day and they were awesome! For most of the day we were having a great time, the boys were loving the games, were excited to learn, were just thriving on the running and the fresh air in their pink little lungs. We were doing several activities with several groups of boys circuit style. Each group of about 10 boys each would rotate through every half hour or so.

One particular group of boys showed up ready to go, and I could tell right away that this group was gonna be trouble. There WAS a ringleader. An ornery, disrespectful little dude who probably only REALLY needed the love and attention of his father...Well I was TRYING to be patient and have a sweet and Christ-like attitude as this kid became more and more disruptive, more and more obnoxious, more and more out of control. As I was explaining the rules of one of our games, he started acting out and began to be physically aggressive toward a few of his group-mates. Well, if you ask my kids how I would advise them to deal with a "bully" you'll find that "turning the other cheek" has never come up. I very cleverly and stealthily (or so I thought) made a subtle move and hip-checked that kid right on his @$$. Then I proceeded to act so surprised, picked him up, brushed him off, asked him if he tripped or something and went on my merry way with explaining the game. The startled look on that kids face was flippin' priceless. I think I had him convinced that the wind knocked him over, but for the remainder of our time together he was an attentive little angel.

As this group was leaving our station, Mr. Ornery was winding back up to his full butthead status and I was finding myself sympathizing with the next station leader he would encounter. Surely they would not have the presence of mind to knock the kid on his crack as I had. As we were watching them walk away Caleb looked at me and started laughing. He said "Mom, that was the greatest thing I've ever seen!" I tried to look puzzled, but yeah...my kid knows his mom too well.

So as he was reminding me of this occurrence 6 years ago, we decided that if I had been plagued with my neural overload problems of today, that boy might not have fared so well.

The Naming of the Crew

How bout that title?! I'm so clever sometimes it frightens me. Throughout the last twenty years each of my kids at one time or another has asked me how we came up with their names. Either out of curiosity or a school or church lesson, they have wanted to know the origin of their individual labels. So here goes...

Kolby Knight: My firstborn. My initiation into the overwhelming world of parenthood. What to name this little person who is entrusting me with everything. Well I'll tell you right now that I *wanted* to name you Christopher (or Kristopher) and call you Kit. But the only way Monte would go for that was to forgo the Christopher part and name you Kit Carson Carver. Now although Kit Carson WAS a real and influential man (whose REAL name was Christopher by the way...just throwin that out there), I thought it was silly to name my baby after some guy in a book that we weren't even related to! Why not name a child Alice in Wonderland Carver? Sheesh! We could not come up with anything we both liked and the vetoes were flying like bullets. We both wanted originality, something that flowed with the last name, it wasn't coming. Finally, as your dad was selling pest control door to door, he came across a man who had a name that he liked. After selling this dude on some bug warfare he came home and shared the name with me, and I liked it too! Kolby it was!! Your middle name was easy for me and I all but demanded it, Dad didn't argue. It's my mom's maiden name, a name that conjours thoughts of a man standing for truth and righteousness. A man who will fight for what's right. A man like the man I knew you would be. My Knight.

Kelsie Lucretia: Your name was not easy to come by either. Your dad thought it would be cool to somehow tie in your name with mine. I was flattered but wasn't sure that it was the right thing to do to my little girl, after all I was named after my dad's favorite Irish Pub, but I let Monte play with my name and try to find something. Unfortunately what he came up with was Kelicia or Keleasha, I'm not sure how he wanted to spell it, but you get the idea. I thought that this name might be a little too um...ethnic, for the two whitest people on earth. After alot of names and more vetoes were thrown around (this time we had Kolby's ideas too...Cookie, Lambchop), we both tentatively settled on Chelsea. We told your dad's Aunt Christie our name choice and she said "Why Chelsea? Name her Kelsie." Well Wow! What a revelation! That was it from that day forward. Your dad and I kind of had an agreement that we'd trade off the middle names and sadly for you...this was his turn ;] Your middle name is the name of your dad's mommy. The woman that he worshiped above all others. She was a bit annoyed that we named her sweet granddaughter Lucretia, having lived with the name all her life, but I'm glad we did and I think you are too.

Caleb Justice: Your dad and I still felt like kids ourselves when we had your two older siblings. When you came along we were starting to feel like grown-ups. We had just begun to purchase our first home, we bought a mini-van, we were professional parents now! So we took a more grown-up approach to naming you. In other words, your dad pretty much left it up to me (after all, it was my turn for the *middle* naming anyway). Obviously he had to push for Kit Carson Carver again, but after that he was pretty agreeable to my favorites. You were born and we were in the hospital but I still had not come up with a suitable name for this gorgeous little creature. My first choice was Sterling which I still love, it made me think of you as a Supreme Court Judge, or a Texas Ranger. I called you Sterling for several hours but it wasn't working for me. Then I decided upon Casey Jon. Casey had some sentimental value for me and Jon is my dad's name. That would probably buy me some brownie points with my folks. I even went so far as to call my family and tell them that this was your name. But that night, actually it was around 3 in the morning, in that dim hospital room where you and I were the only occupants, I was holding you and looking at your perfect little face and I knew that your name was not Casey Jon. It was Caleb Justice. It slid into place in my mind like a Lego block. It clicked. For whatever reason your name could be nothing else. To me Son, this is important. You are meant for something great and your name will be tied to it. Keep that in mind always. What will you do with this name?

Chance Chatelain: Obviously it was your daddy's turn for the middle name again ;) After we had the usual and endless "Kit Carson Carver" argument, we both settled on Chance fairly quickly. Your dad likes to tell people that we named you Chance because that's kinda how you came to be. We do have fun with your name...slim Chance, fat Chance, no Chance, notta Chance, last Chance. I came up with your name, and while I let your dad's brain and mouth run amok, I know where your name came from. I got it from a beautiful song titled "I Am Your Child" and if your dad had any notion that I got your name from a Barry Manilow song he would have used his biggest veto on it. So I kept that information to myself until it was too late for him to do anything. To me your name means infinite hope and optimism. Chatelain is the maiden name of your Grandpa Bob's mother. A spunky and fun red-head who left him too soon. So far you've lived up to your name of potential and affirmation. You keep it up my little man!

McKenna Elyse: Our sweet baby girl. We knew that you would be our last little one so your name weighed pretty heavy on my mind. If you were a boy you were going to be named Connor (whether your dad liked it or not), but I was having a harder time with girl names. By the time you were a week from being here we had it narrowed down to McKenna and Cheyenne. Both of them brought to my mind beauty, strength, femininity, nature, and a carefree spirit. I'm a Wyoming girl so I was leaning toward Cheyenne, but I had been kind of a hog the last couple times with the baby naming. Monte's favorite movie is "Somewhere in Time" with Jane Seymour and Christopher Reeve. He had (still has) a huge crush on Jane Seymour, and I don't mind watching the movie with him because Christopher Reeve (God rest his soul) is absolutely beautiful in this movie. I digress Sweetheart...Jane Seymour's character's name in this movie is Elyse McKenna. I liked the fact that McKenna (like Kelly ;]) is an Irish name, and I liked it better as a first name so we did a switcheroo and Ta DAH.... Yes, we are very clever. I love it.

There you go my darlings. There, for better or worse, is the nature and origin of all of your names. I'm proud of all of them just as I am proud of the people they title. You five are my life and truest loves. Make good use of these names. Treat them with respect so they will be spoken with respect by your posterity.

I love you Chris

Thought of you with love today, but that is nothing new. I thought about you yesterday, and days before that too. I think of you in silence, I often speak your name. All I have are memories and a picture in a frame. Your memory is a keepsake, with which I'll never part. God has you in His keeping, I have you in my heart.

Tweet Tweet

I took my little Nephew Keldon a toy the other day. It's a fuzzy little chick that tweets when it sits on your hand. I think the moisture from your skin connects with these two little electrical diode uh....thingymabobs. Anyway, the chickie tweets.

Watching Baby Kel play with his chickie reminded me of the first tweeting toy chickie that I was exposed to. It belonged to my son Kolby.

Kolby loved making that little bugger tweet. One Sunday we were having a bit of an argument because he wanted to take his chickie to church and MOM thought that an incessant tweeting chickie might just get us kicked out. Well stubborn Kolby said he was TAKING his chickie and headed to the door. He opened the front door, (tweet, tweet, tweet). Then he touched the screen door (tweet, tweet). Little did Kolbs know that there was a twitterpated birdie out in our fir tree who wanted to MEET his chickie! He opened that screen door and Mr Twitter divebombed Kolby in order to rescue chickie (I can only assume it was a man bird, cuz us girls aren't nearly that hard up for love).

Well being the cool and collected mom that I am, I hit the deck screaming with my arms over my head (I have this problem with flappy flying things). Kolby looked bewildered and then somewhat alarmed as Twitter was still trying to kiss chickie. He did the wisest thing possible and chucked chickie as far away as he could. Daddy was being no help at all as he was laughing his @$$ off in the kitchen. Mama is still prone on the floor trying to regain some courage (not to mention dignity ) and little Kelsie was sitting on the floor next to Mom munching on a graham cracker taking everything in with those big blue eyes.

After Dad and Mom were able to compose themselves, we went throughout the house opening every door and window so we could herd poor little lovelorn Twitter back outside where his feathery butt belonged.

The good news is little Kolbster forgot all about taking his tweeting chickie to church after this adventure.