INSIDE THIS ISSUE Classifieds..............................................................................A4 Community Calendar .................................................B4,5,6,7 Healthy Times .....................................................................A10 Valentine’s Day .............................................................A12,13
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January 24, 2014
Holland’s Caywood hopes he’s made a difference By Garth Snow
“I don’t know what’s out there. … Like everybody, I’ve got this book in the back of my mind that I’d like to write.” Michael Caywood, retiring after 41 years in Fort Wayne Community Schools
gsnow@kpcmedia.com
For decades, Michael Caywood has asked himself why his name graces a principal’s office while other men’s names grace war memorials. Even as he shrugs off his honor as Indiana elementary principal of the year — even as he says how much he will enjoy retirement — even as he says he is blessed to have spent 41 years in education, the Vietnam veteran asks why the stroke of a pencil sent him to a support role and sent many of his generation into combat. The Holland Elementary School Veterans Day program has provided an outlet for the lessons that Caywood takes from his life and his studies. “We have Korean War vets in, we have World War II vets in, they speak to our kids,” said Caywood, of Huntertown. “I’ve really tried to teach boys and girls that those veterans have sacrificed something — some of them gave everything — to give the kids the opportunity to do what they’re doing right now.” “The most recent book I read was ‘The Boys of ’67,’ and it tells about guys my age that were drafted the same time I did, who went to the same base camp I did, who landed in Vietnam at the same port that I did,” he said. “The difference was they ended up in an infantry company. I ended up in a support
PHOTO BY GARTH SNOW
Principal Michael Caywood reads a book from a collection once owned by Mabel K. Holland, for whom the Fort Wayne elementary school is named. Caywood will retire in June, after 31 years at Holland.
company. And that made the difference. I never sell that short. I just value that experience, but I don’t dwell on it.” Caywood reflected on that experience again Nov. 24 when he accepted his award from the Indiana Association of School Principals, about 46 years after his return from Vietnam. He shared that he and his wife, Nancy, visited Vietnam memorials across the country a few years ago. “And every time I would leave one of those, and
Jeweler says life is easier ‘as long as you like people’ By Garth Snow gsnow@kpcmedia.com
PHOTO BY GARTH SNOW
Steve and Diana Shannon are closing Shannon Jewelers in Northbrook Village. Steve Shannon opened his first Fort Wayne-area jewelry store in March 1982.
you might say.” He said “big grand ideas about building a business” can be at odds with “a big heart.” A customer asked Shannon’s help to remove a ring from his mother’s finger. Rather than charge for the service in the store, Shannon lent the man his tools. “He took them home with him, and put
her at ease to take it off her finger,” he said. Shannon said two generations of some families now have come to him for wedding rings and other jewelry. Shannon worked at International Harvester for more than 18 years, and See JEWELER, Page A4
3306 Independence Drive, Fort Wayne, IN 46808
Times Community Publications
The sign on the door reads “Shannon Jewelers,” but Steve Shannon speaks of his work in terms of people, not products. As he prepares to retire from his fourth location and a 32-year jewelry career, Shannon serves a steady stream of customers at the Northbrook Village store. “It’s one person at a time,” he said early in the close-out sale. “As I’ve always told my son and other people I’ve worked around, ‘When that door opens, that’s my boss coming through the front door.’ It’s as simple as that.” After closing the store, Shannon and wife, Diana, will move to the Nashville, Tenn., area. “I’ve always been about people, rather than business and dollars and cents,” he said. “To my detriment,
they would have a whole list of men who had been killed, the question kept coming up,” he said. “Why did I get out of there after a year, unscathed, untouched, having the experience that I did but being able to come back?” “Shortly after we got back from that trip,” he said, “I had a phone call from a young lady. It was a girl from back at Bloomingdale School, some years ago. And I asked her, ‘Why are you looking for me? Why did you search
me out?’ And her words were, ‘Because you made a difference in my life.’ And somehow or other that struck a chord with me. That was the answer to that question that I asked every time I left one of those memorials. ‘Why did I get out of it unscathed?’ To me, it was to be able to make a difference in the lives of boys and girls over the course of these 41 years. And I’ve impacted thousands of kids and hundreds if not thousands of staff members, and I think for the most part it’s been a pretty positive impact.” Caywood entered first grade at Wallen School, which he explained is now Washington Center School. He does not recall the name of his first-grade teacher, or the first name of his second-grade teacher. “I can tell you my third-grade teacher, it was Dolly Miller,” he said. “She was very demanding. And I tell my third-grade students often, as we are trying to get them to memorize their multiplication tables, I tell them about the time that Dolly Miller, with my parents’ blessing, turned me over her knee and gave me a few swats on the rear end for not learning my multiplicaSee CAYWOOD, Page A5