Article by Victoria Raschke
1990 Midway High
Yesterday I learned that Mr. Anthony Keko died this week. For someone who’s never heard the name, it is easy to wonder why this has deeply affected me. A death always makes us stop and ponder our own mortality. It also makes us think about the trajectory of that person’s life in our own.
Mr. Keko was one of those teachers who, even when you are very young, makes you realize there is a bigger world out there. I remember slide shows of his trip to Greece and other tales from his life. He was similar to my father in that way, as they were both consummate storytellers. I always felt lucky that I was in his class and my ongoing love of geography and travel stems largely from that year. I wanted to go to all those places on those maps.
I have had the great luck of having many good teachers. Whatever anyone may say about the public schools in this country, and some of those things are true, they do offer hope in ways that few other public institutions do. I was not abjectly poor. I did not live in the inner city. But, I did live in a rural part of this country where a great number of people still are born, live and die in the same county. I knew pretty early that there was more I wanted to see and with the help of teachers like Mr. Keko, Mrs. Eldridge, Mrs. Helton, Mr. Hayes and Mr. King I came to realize that I could go places and push myself to do important things and maybe even make a change in the world.
I did go to college (public) and grad school (public again) and then to technical school for a culinary degree (public one more time) to give me a vocation to support my avocation or vice versa — the jury is still out on which is which. I am a modern creature in that I have changed not only jobs, but careers about every five years. I have worried that all those teachers and mentors who invested in me along the way might have been disappointed that I did not turn out to be a rocket scientist, a brain surgeon, or President (as Mr. Keko believed). I thought maybe I had failed them in my non-earth shattering life of teaching at a community college and trying to write. I love my job. I enjoy interacting with my students and getting to know who they are and where they want to go. So, I am not interested in rocket surgery or being President but I hope that what I have become is in the end a better tribute to Mr. Keko and those others who made such a difference in my life. Because of him, because of them, I am a teacher.