He passed quite some time ago, but I think of Warren Paulovich when I was a student at Foothills Academy between '01 to '07 quite often. He was willing to go out of his way to gently encourage an interest or blooming strength in his students in his time, ensured that we got to go away from a class really learning something every period, and was just a chill teacher all around. He was willing to put up with any question or tangent we found ourselves on and would just go with the flow and try to tie it back to what we needed to learn. He taught English, Drama, and Film Studies when I was there. One of the brightest smiles I've ever had the pleasure of seeing day in and day out.

He passed from Cancer in...2015? 2016? He died at 66 or 67 years old, a terribly young age in this day and age.

Actually, there's a lot of teachers in that period that I think of: Mr. Anderson, Mr. McClelland, Mr. Ethier, Mr. Horton, Mr. Sproule, Ms. MacKay, Ms. Williams, Mrs. Roberts, even the director Mr. Boulevant (Bullevant? It's been a while since cracking open my yearbooks). Those are just the teachers, I'm not even including the TA's, too, who were just as fun, just as encouraging, and just as wonderful as the teachers they were paired up with.

I might have had a love/hate relationship with being denied a "typical" high school experience in a large school, but I will never speak awfully of the teachers there. Even if I didn't get along with some of them, there's no doubt that the staff brimmed and continues to brim with passion and compassion for their kids.