Former Third-Graders Keep 20-Year Promise

Twenty years ago, Armin Jahr Elementary School teacher Richard Lewis wrote a simple request on his third-grade classroom white board: meet at the school, near the flagpole, at noon on Jan. 1, 2010.

And two decades later, 11 former students — many now parents and professionals — honored that request and gathered for an emotional reunion outside their Washington State school.

"It's like I finally get the ball and go into the end zone and I get to spike it," Lewis told local reporters, including the Kitsap Sun. "I did it. I actually did it."

Lewis beamed and hugged each of his grown students, clearly humbled that they made the effort to attend. In turn, several former students turned on the waterworks and enjoyed reminiscing about the past, and catching each other up on what their lives had become.

"That's the best part about all this. To me, everyone pretty much looks the same except for beards and gel in their hair," former student Jenna Matthews told KING5 in Seattle and sagely added, "(We live) in a time of people reconnecting via Facebook and MySpace, but actually coming together physically for something that was really a special memory."

According to the Kipsap Sun, Lewis quit teaching 15 years ago when he became disillusioned with the profession and it became more about teaching subjects than teaching children, but he said the reunion was "an affirmation that what I was doing was a good thing."

And in case you were wondering, there's already plans for another reunion in the works: Jan. 1, 2020, same time, same place.

Photo courtesy of Mattox via stock.xchang.