Eighty year old Milton B. is a retired school teacher. For years he taught at Oconomowoc Jr. High. As a teacher he enjoyed watching his students succeed. He also enjoyed working with troubled students, and helping them with their school related issues. Out of the various troubled students he dealt with, he recalls “one being the worst yet the most surprising”.

Milt said, “Randy was a large kid and a trouble maker.”
“He said Randy was a student who had a hard time making an F”.
My question to him was, “name some memorable experiences you had with Randy before and after he was a student of yours.”

Milt told me a story about Randy that you don’t hear too often about a student. Milt was sitting in his empty class room during his free period, when he heard a door slam in the hall way. He walked out to the hall way to see what happened, and saw a kid an angry kid leaving a class room. As Milt started this student for slamming the door, the student turned around and punched Milt in the jaw.
Milt said, “I went out to reprimand him and then he hit me.”

Milt said, “He was in shock of what just happened, and Randy was still angry.”
He walked directly down to the principal’s office and reported Randy’s actions. The police were called and Randy was kicked out of the school for a year and sent to a juvenile correction facility. Randy was not a student of Milt’s, but Milt heard he was a trouble maker.

When the question came up what did you want to do after you were hit?

Milt laughed and said, “I wanted to knock him silly, but that wouldn’t have been the right action to take.”
He realized that would have led to more trouble than he wanted in the first place.

It wasn’t until Randy’s class became freshman, and Randy was let back in the school. He was placed in Milt’s small engine repair class.
Milt said, “Having this troubled abusive kid as a student was going to be difficult.” He didn’t know how Randy was going to be this school year and what was going to happen between them.

Milt and Randy started to get along during this semester long shop class.
Milt said, “There was something about that class that caught his interest and made him a friendlier person.”
When the class ended Milt had not seen Randy for thirty years, but though of him now and again.

Last week Milt was doing his volunteer work at the hospital when a large man approached him. The tall man said,
“Excuse me are you Mr. B?”
Milt replied, “Yes I am”.
The man introduced him self and said he was a student in your tech class by the name of Randy. Randy said,
“I would like to thank you for giving me a second chance and helping me change life.”
Milt said, “Hearing that made his day a little better, and always enjoys hearing things from former students about being their favorite teacher and things like that.”