25 June 2023

Two days after graduating, Becky was back on campus at SOU for a fellowship with the Teach From Your Best Self Institute. She spent all week learning how to teach with less stress. The fellowship will continue through the 2023-2024 school year and feels like a great follow up for her second year of teaching.

Meanwhile, Gibson continued his trip on the East Coast. This is a photo from New York City.

And Helen spent the week roaming Southern Oregon with friends. She hiked Roxy Ann with Gib and Ed on Monday.

Here they are at the top.

On Wednesday they hiked Upper Table Rock to watch the sun rise on the summer solstice. They started a little late and raced the sun to the top.

From the left are Helen, Ed, Gib and Emma.

18 June 2023

Helen's photo was in the newspaper for graduation.

Several of the seniors in our ward will be leaving on missions this summer and fall. Our bishop invited all of the graduating seniors to attend temple prep classes this spring to help them prepare. The parents took turns teaching the lessons. This photo is from our last class on Sunday. From the left are Tyrone (attending UW), Seth (mission to Marshall Islands), Luke (mission to Dominican Republic), Scott (mission to Argentina), Marcus (mission to Brazil), Annie (attending BYU), Helen (attending U of U) and Emma (applying for a mission now).

Helen's piano teacher made her this beautiful quilt. Helen has taken piano lessons from Martha Hall for 10 years and plays beautifully. 

Gibson left on Wednesday for a school trip to the East Coast. To save money on flights, the students took a bus from our town to Portland, then flew to Washington, DC. At least they got to ride in the district travel bus instead of a regular school bus.

With Helen graduated and Gibson gone on his trip, Becky was the last Hull left at school for the last three days of school. Her classes finished up their final presentations on Thursday. Each class only had 4-5 students left to present, which didn't take all of the class time, so Becky brought a soccer ball and goals to play soccer in the shady space next to her classroom. Soccer was a huge hit and will definitely be back next year.  

Friday was the last day of school. This is a photo of the buses lined up to take the students home for the summer.

Becky left a few hours later, feeling tired and content. She left it all on the field. It was a huge year of growth and learning for her, and hopefully some of her students learned something, too. She's already looking forward to and planning for next year.

And the celebrations keep coming! On Saturday Becky graduated from Southern Oregon University with a Masters of Arts in Teaching degree. This photo is has the best view of the hood she wore as part of her regalia. The light blue is for her field of learning, education, and the red and black lining is for her school colors.

Brandan has provided constant and meaningful support for the past 5 years while Becky completed her degree.

This is a photo of Brandan's view of the ceremony. The masters degree candidates got front row seats on the field.

Here's a photo of Becky walking across the stage.

This is Becky's fellow math teacher, Tre. Our program only had two candidates with an emphasis in math. Our math methods class this year consisted of the two of us and our professor, Francie. Luckily Tre is fantastic and Francie is an extraordinary mathematician and instructor so the class was super relevant, impactful and even fun. Now, with the extreme math teacher shortage across the United States, we have our choice of districts and schools to work at. It's a nice feeling to be in high demand.

Later we celebrated with dinner with the Stamps and the Badizadegans. From the left are Desi, Masood, Chuck and Iona. Helen and Desi's husband, Zach, joined us later. As always, we enjoyed catching up and spending time with these amazing friends.

We haven't heard much from Gib since he left on his trip. We asked him to send a photo and he responded with this stunner. Nice! Gib will be gone for another week, having adventures in Washington, DC, Philadelphia and New York City.

11 June 2023

Helen graduated from seminary on Sunday night. We didn't take any photos ourselves and are sharing a photo from the stake. Helen is in the middle row on the right.

 

Monday night was the graduation parade. Gib Gailey drove Helen in the parade in his truck, Bertha. Helen, Gib and Gibson decorated the truck on Monday afternoon.

We watched the parade with our friends and neighbors. Gibson rode along with Helen and Gib. A lot of the balloons blew away before the parade even started.

Becky has an empty table in class now since the seniors haven't been in class. She brought a chess set to school and set it up on the empty table. Chess is having a moment right now with teenagers. Most of them have a chess app on their phone. The chess set has been getting a lot of playtime at school. Students who don't know how to play are eager to learn how from their friends.

As a first year teacher and late hire, Becky got the last room available, and actually she likes it quite a lot. It's in a great location and has big windows and lots of natural light. It does not have very much storage. Becky has been asking for an additional shelf for her built in bookshelf from the beginning of the year. Jim, the head custodian, has been very busy with school construction and it took many months for Becky to get to the top of his to-do list. Finally we worked out a plan together. Becky supplied a shelf (thanks to Brandan cutting some wood leftover in our garage to size) and Jim looked through his supply room for the paint that matched Becky's room. Becky painted the shelf this weekend and will start next year with a little more space for the math games, tools and supplies she loves to use in class.

Wednesday was Graduation Day! We gave Helen her jean quilt, made from the jeans she has worn and Becky saved throughout her life.

This friend group met at the temple to do baptisms at 7 am. From the left are Chase, Cason, Grace, Helen, Gib, Gibson, Crew, Ed and Emma.

Helen all dressed up for graduation.

Ready to graduate!

Here's a photo of Helen and Emma.

Graduation was held in the school stadium. The school set the score board clock to 20:23 in honor of the graduates.

Graduation started at 8. We got there before 7 to get good seats. Gibson and Sofi played thumb wars while we waited.

The graduates entered to Pomp and Circumstance. Helen walked with Caleb Crouch. The cords around Helen's neck represent her school activities: blue for her small school (BIS), purple for AP classes, light blue for clubs, blue and white for DECA, red and black for Southern Oregon University credits and gold for top 5%. She also had a gold tassel for being a member of National Honor Society.

Graduation began promptly at 8 pm and paused about 5 minutes later when lightning crashed overhead. Lightning storms were in the forecast all week so the organizers had a plan in place. The graduates left the field and waited in the gym for the lightning to pass by. The audience was under cover so we waited in the stands until graduation resumed. At least Sofi waited in the stands. Becky took the opportunity to take Helen's car, which was parked far away from the school, home so we wouldn't have to get it in the traffic jam after graduation. Brandan went home to get some dinner. He had stake meetings in between work and graduation and hadn't had time to eat. Gibson left with friends and went to DQ. 

We made it back in time to see the graduates come back on the field shortly after 9 pm. It was raining lightly, but the lightning was more than 5 miles away, the requirement to hold an outdoor event. Not knowing Gib had left during the break, we felt bad for ditching Sofi. The graduates returned to Pomp and Circumstance playing again, but they just walked quickly to their seats from the gym.

It's hard to see her, but Helen is sitting on the left side about 3 rows back.

After a lovely ceremony with an enthusiastic audience, the students officially graduated.

Here we are with Helen after graduation. Sofi flew down from Seattle for the event.

From the left are Chase, Emma, Gib, Ed, Gibson, Jason and Helen.

Gib is moving to Utah after school gets out. We will miss him!

Helen with Chase and Emma.

It was great to spend time with Sofi! She and Helen spent Thursday in Ashland before Sofi had to go home.

Sofi gave Helen a beautiful bouquet.

Becky attended her last class for her master's program on Thursday. In honor of the end of the two year program, our program director hosted a potluck at his home. Only about half of the students in the MAT cohort came, representing the most committed of the group. From the left are Amanda, music; Ana, Spanish; Taite, social studies; Marcus, social studies; Darian, health and PE; Becky, math; and Katrin, English.

Here's a photo of the group with our program director and the instructor of about half our classes, Nigel Waterton, the man in the apron. He has the perfect name for a stuffy English professor, but he's actually an outdoorsman from Montana. And an English professor.

Katrin brought this cake with a common experience with Nigel. Even though he knew it's poor style as a teacher to ask questions where students need to guess what the teacher is thinking, he asked some form of this question nearly every class.

On Saturday Brandan had the privilege of baptizing one of his medical assistants. Becky Savage. Brandan didn't realize Becky was taking the discussions and Becky didn't realize Brandan was a member of the church until they saw each other at a ward Brandan was speaking in.

Here they are with Becky's husband, Dan, and the trio of sisters who taught Becky. Dan is a member of the church, although not currently interested in attending. Becky wanted to find a religious home and started looking at our church because of Dan's past experiences. Dan happily supported Becky at her baptism.

Helen played in her last violin recital on Saturday. She played Concertino in A Minor by Ortmans.

Here's a throwback to Helen as a beginning violinist. She started taking lessons in the fall of 2010.

Helen began lessons with Kimberly Fitch, then moved to Faina Podolnaya a few years later when Kimberly moved. Faina is a demanding teacher with a huge heart.

Here's a photo of Helen with her violin friends. They all play in Siskiyou Violins together. After covid disrupted everything, Faina had to rebuild her violin ensemble. This is the core group that played pre-covid and reunited when groups could gather again. From the left are Amara, Cecilia, Helen and Daniel. Not pictured is Adele. We hope Helen keeps finding ways to play her violin, even though she is finished with formal training.