Leadership with a Servant’s Heart

By Andrea Sifers, Principal of Ft. Gibson Intermediate Elementary School

When your school is located in the same town as a National Cemetery, it would be ill advised to miss the opportunity of instilling a sense of patriotism and respect with your students, as well as taking the opportunity for your students to show leadership within their community. Fort Gibson Intermediate Elementary is located a little more than a mile from one of Oklahoma’s two National Cemeteries, sharing a street deemed “The Trail of Honor.”

Every December our administration and Student Council take a day to volunteer with our local American Legion and Wreaths of Honor to place wreaths on the headstones of the veterans interred at Fort Gibson National Cemetery. Leadership comes in many forms, and we see this as an opportunity to show our students that you can’t live a perfect day without doing something for someone who can never repay you. The lessons and hard work that come from this experience are invaluable.

A few years ago, the previous principal, Sherry Rybolt, was discussing the importance of respect with a group of fifth grade students playing football on the playground. During the conversation, a funeral procession for a fallen service member began to drive past. Seeing the opportunity in front of her, Mrs. Rybolt had her students look to see how drivers would pull their cars over to honor the loss of a loved one as a showing of respect to the family. One of the students made a connection to the way players will “take a knee” during athletic events to show honor to an injured player. That day, a life lesson was planted in the hearts of those students as they all dropped to a knee on the playground to show honor, respect, and patriotism.

Over time, the habit of dropping to one knee spread from the group of boys that played football to the students on the basketball court, the soccer field, and eventually to the whole playground. The now ongoing tradition is practiced without fail by every single third, fourth, and fifth grade student, as well as the adults on supervising duty on the playground. It’s one of the unspoken rules students just seem to know that helps define the culture of respect that makes us who we are at Fort Gibson Intermediate Elementary School. Our students carry this sense of patriotism with them even after their playground days are over. Our district’s baseball field is also along the “Trail of Honor” and our previous students that are now junior high and high school baseball players carry over their elementary tradition and stop playing for a funeral passing by.

As someone new to the district in the 2018-2019 school year, I was told of this act of patriotism that takes place on our playground. Nothing can truly prepare someone for the moment they get to experience this act of pride with our students. A wave of students dropping to one knee will slowly move across the playground as a funeral begins to make its way to the National Cemetery. As the current principal at Intermediate Elementary, I can say the pride I felt when I saw our students honoring this person was one of the most overwhelming and emotional moments I have experienced in my career. This simple act of honor is felt by family members of those passed on as well. Over the years, our school has received countless cards, phone calls, emails, and even in person visits from people who were in awe of the respect shown by our students. One letter received from the daughter of a serviceman commended our students for kneeling in respect and encouraged them to keep it up. Every time a thank you letter is received it is read over the intercom to our student body. Being able to share the impact of their positive actions helps to further instill the sense of pride that Fort Gibson is known for.

Mahatma Gandhi said, “A nation’s culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of its people.” Fort Gibson Intermediate Elementary is instilling respect and pride in its culture, and growing decent human beings, one student at a time. ■