Kindness ripples for decades

In September 1965, our family moved to Coeur d’Alene, then a small town of around 15,000. I was 13 and just starting the eighth grade. Walking up the steps of the junior high school, on the first day, I knew no one. We had no family here and my sisters, brother and I hadn’t made any friends yet. We’d moved from a world away in Southern California at a time when not many people were moving to Coeur d’Alene from anywhere.

I recall being nervous and unsure about fitting in and being accepted by kids who’d known each other their whole lives. I did make friends eventually, some of whom I’m blessed to still have in my life.

At that time, Coeur d’Alene Junior High School was on Seventh Street and comprised of seventh, eighth and ninth grades. Barb Benner was a cool older girl ... a pretty, popular, smart ninth-grade cheerleader whom I admired from afar. She was also very nice. I recall appreciating her friendliness towards me, the new girl with braces, when our paths would cross in the hallways.

The next year, she and her classmates moved on to high school and I’d made friends and no longer felt like an outsider.

Fast forward decades, six to be exact, and Barb Benner Everson comes up to say hello at the CHS All Class 50+ Year Reunion this past Saturday. She’s still pretty and sweet and just one of my best memories of being the new girl at school when I was 13.

The impact one person, one kind person, can make ripples through the generations. I’m quite sure back then Barb had no idea that her example of treating people with kindness always would be one that would stay with me long after our school days were just memories.

I wish for every unsure middle and high school kid today that there’s a Barb Benner smiling and shining the light of kindness and that many years from now you’ll have the chance to give her a hug and thank her.

Be like Barb!

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Thursday marks the 24th anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in a Shanksville, Pa., field, which claimed nearly 3,000 everyday American lives. And life as we knew it, including air travel, was changed forever.

The horror of Sept. 11, 2001, should not be reduced to rhetoric or symbolism. Those horrific images, both print and electronic, should be kept fresh in all of our minds. Those who died were real people, with real families, who were murdered by terrorists. And those are real people wearing the uniform of our armed forces, still fighting for freedom on foreign soil this very moment.

In addition to the heroic first responders who lost their lives Sept. 11, 2001, the flight crews of American Airlines Flights 11 and 77, and United Airlines Flights 175 and 93, spent their final moments comforting and protecting their passengers during the hijackings. Thirty-three pilots and flight attendants died that day.

It’s my heartfelt hope that we, as American citizens, never forget the attacks, both the horror and the heroics. Those who were too young to remember or who were born in the years after Sept. 11, 2001, should study that historic event that shaped who we are and how we live today.

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Happy Main Street Birthdays today to Gregg Gain, Mary Ellen Denton, Tami Martinez, Helen Terway and Annette Kennedy. Tomorrow, Jim Pierce, Hannah Epstein (18!), Cameron Epstein (18!), Cyndie Brubaker, Jeremy Siegler, Kelly Hanson, Mark Compton, Patty Roberson, Lily Hollibaugh and Darrell Dlouh mark another year. On Friday, Rose Backs, Nelson Gourley, Tiegan Horton, Nancy Adam,Walter Cole, Norman Oss and Polly Gava raise a glass to another birthday. Shelley Cornelius, Mike Pearce, Larry Riley, Janell Mollett, Kelly Sheffield, Ryan Bartlett, Thomas Vigil, Mary Langenberg, Stormy Purcell, Ray Harwood, Lori Turchik, Laura Fierro, JulieAnn Sparrowgrove, Cher Rhoads, Nicole Hamilton, Gina Davis and Debbie Margraff have Saturday birthdays. On Sunday, Leslie Orth, Connie Glass, Tammy Rubino, Diane Lemas, Wayne Dust and Anna DeTar will celebrate. Pat Near, Claudia Brennan, Brad Medlock, Jerry Deitz, Jean Wright, Shannon Englander, Kathie Colosimo, Angie Purcell, Liese Razzeto and Nick McDonald take another trip around the sun Monday. On Sept. 16, Bob Dietz, Jeff Thompson, Courtney Hurt, James Hoialman, Charollett Morehouse and Terrie Lynn Gonzales will eat cake and celebrate!.

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Kerri Rankin Thoreson is a member of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists and the former publisher of the Post Falls Tribune. Main Street appears every Wednesday in The Press and Kerri can be contacted on Facebook or via email [email protected].