Emporia, Kansas, is another one of those little towns that happens to have a university attached to it that few people know about--Emporia State. It's a couple of hours southwest of Topeka.
It prides itself on education development, most specifically teacher training. A student who really wants to know how to teach, the nuts and bolts of it all, would do worse than attending college there. There are no great stadiums and/or arenas to fill up on evenings and afternoons, of course; that is reserved for the bigger names. That's okay. Teaching, at its best, is like that. No empty bragging.
During my time on the NEA Executive Committee, I was assigned to go there once a year and help select the five newest members of what was developed there to honor the best teachers among us: The National Teachers Hall of Fame. This is separate from the more celebrated, but just as much fun, process of selecting the National Teacher of the Year, done in Washington, DC, and usually honored in the Rose Garden of the White House, something I was also involved with for a couple of years. The processes were totally differen and, not surprisingly, few in any nominated appeared on both lists, at least not to my recollection. Meaning: There are lots of really outstanding teachers out there. That's just scraping the very top of the list.
While very little else of note will ever be developed in Emporia, Kansas, I thought that an addition made after my service had ended was a good one: A memorial to those teachers killed while doing their jobs. It's right on the Emporia State campus, on 18th and Merchant Streets, for anyone to stop and consider.
There will be two more names added now, having been in the wrong place at the wrong, barbaric moment: Irma Garcia, whose husband subsequently died of a heart attack, in her 23rd year of teaching at the same school, 48; and Eva Mirales, whose husband is a school district police officer, in her 17th year of teaching, 44.
At least they're up somewhere. They won't be dead and forgotten. Emporia may not be a magnet for tourism, but from now on, someone will say their names beyond Uvalde, Texas. I hope there's still room on there. It's filling up slowly but surely in this sick, sad, stricken nation of ours.
They should be honored. They served the country as much in their own way as those we will honor again on Monday, who put on a military uniform, put themselves in harm's way and did not return. That they are shoved into a quiet little corner of Kansas, way-way off the beaten path, is a testimony to the relative anonymity of teaching--but not of its impact.
But what about the kids? Yes, crosses and soothing commentary now appear outside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, and they will no doubt stay there for an extended time. But should that just be confined to that place? Shouldn't there be another memorial dedicated to the children who have died in these despicable attacks? Shouldn't their names be displayed where people can always see them? Is that too maudlin, or should we remind ourselves of the tragedy of lost years and lost childhood?
Which begs another question: Where should it be?
Here's another question: Does that matter? If little Emporia, Kansas, has a memorial for slain teachers that few will see, doesn't that justify putting a children's memorial in a place where more will see it? Or is it enough to just get something up?
I'm not sure of that answer. But something should be considered. We need to remind ourselves of how awful this nation has become. It isn't too much to ask to find a way to perpetually honor these kids. All they wanted to do was their homework. They got gunned down instead.
The geographical center of the United States, which isn't going to move anytime soon (as opposed to the population center, which is always moving), is in western South Dakota, near a town called Belle Fourche (big enough to be included in the National Geographic Atlas of the World), not far from the Wyoming border. It is right up against the foothills of the Black Hills, where another group of forgotten Americans cling to their tradition and burial grounds.
Let's start another tradition there--the tradition of listing the names of the children who have been murdered in their schoolrooms or school grounds. Let's build a memorial there and leave plenty of room for the dozens more who will no doubt be added because a stricken country is too paralyzed, now, to do the right and decent things about the weapons that put them there.
Anybody with me? Anyone else want to expand Memorial Day to include these innocents?
Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
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