24 • Thursday, October 2, 2014
Memory Maker
schools
OVER THE MOUNTAIN Journal
Hoover Teen Finds Lasting Way to Remember Fellow Students By William C. Singleton III
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Journal contributor
hat began as one Hoover teen’s efforts to keep the memory of her friend alive has become a memorial to other Hoover High students whose lives have been cut short. After three years of planning, 17-year-old Abbey Greer’s memorial to her friend, Dallas Golson, and two other students has become reality. During a Sept. 20 ceremony in the Hoover High courtyard, Greer, school officials and family and friends of the deceased dedicated a black marble obelisk bearing the names of the three fallen students. The obelisk will stand as a permanent memorial to Dallas, Natalie Hurst and Jerrell Thomas–each killed in separate car accidents. “Dallas was one of my very good friends so when she passed away, I wanted to do something to honor her memory,” Greer, a Hoover High senior, said. “I knew that Hoover had lost quite a few students so I knew I wasn’t the only one who probably felt this way.” Greer and Golson served in the Girl Scouts together. When Greer was ready to pursue the Girl Scouts Gold Award, she proposed creating a memorial for her friend and other students whose lives ended too soon. The Gold Award– the Girl Scouts’ highest honor–is given to scouts who create a project that serves a community purpose, is educational and is designed to make a lasting impact. Greer said she not only wanted to create a memorial to students who’ve
Above: Jon Hurst, Spencer Hurst and Barbara Hurst pay tribute to Natalie Hurst during the ceremony on Sept. 20. left: Suzie Greer, Abbey’s mom, comforts Barbara Wood, Dallas’ mom, during the dedication ceremony of the memorial at Hoover High.
Abbey Greer, 17, is a Hoover High School senior. Her Girl Scout project included creating a memorial for fallen students at the school. Journal photos by William C. Singleton III
lost their lives but also to help students process their grief. “I feel that when young people experience such a loss, we really don’t know how to grieve,” she said. “Yes, people lose grandparents, and that’s tragic. But it’s nothing near what I felt when I lost a peer.” Greer said she approached the principal of Hoover High and asked about ways she could honor fallen students. Hoover school officials informed her that they had a marble obelisk that was not being used. The school agreed to offer the obelisk for the memorial. “All we had to do was purchase plaques,” Greer said. Greer also created a pamphlet dealing with grief and loss and including resources students can access should they need them.
“She’s going to make sure all those are distributed in the health classes,” Katie Smith, the school’s crisis counselor, said. Greer also enlisted the help of the school’s Student Ambassadors group, which will be responsible for maintaining the memorial after she graduates, and established procedures to be followed if another student’s name has to be added to the monument. “Hopefully, that won’t happen,” Greer said. Although other students have died during their time at Hoover High and have plaques located on school grounds, their names won’t be added
at Highlands School, her cabbage grew to an enormous size. The giant cabbage is not Joy’s first foray into gardening. She said the first thing she ever grew was a golden beet. She attributes her interest in gardening to her studies at Highlands School, where she is able to participate in gardening activities in the school’s greenhouse, raised beds and butterfly garden. Joy tends a garden year-round where she grows corn, beans, tomatoes, cantaloupes and now cabbage. She said she and her family also have an orchard full of apples, plums and blueberries. Joy said the secret to her successful gardening endeavors is using compost dirt made from dry leaves and fruit peels. Laura Joy, a student at Highlands School, grew a huge cabbage over the summer. Photo special to the Journal
Highlands Student Laura Joy Digs Gardening
Grades 8-12 • Open House Nov. 11 • ExperienceSprings.org
just means everything to me to know there’ll be something permanent here for people to remember Dallas.” Jon Hurst, Natalie’s father, said he agreed. “As time goes on and generations go through the school, I think it’s great that when people come back for class reunions or they have kids and they come back to the facility, they’ll see my daughter’s name and they’ll remember my daughter,” he said. “This signifies the fact that she’ll be around forever now, as long as the school is here.” ❖
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on the memorial. “When we started the project, we went five years back, and these were the students’ names we found,” Greer said. “We had to have a cut-off date so we started at 2006.” Barbara Wood, Dallas’ mother, said the memorial means her daughter’s memory will live on at the school. “As a parent, you’re so afraid your child is going to be forgotten, that people are not going to remember what a wonderful person she was,” Wood said through tears. “So this
A Highlands School student spent the summer nurturing a project she started as a third-grader. Over the summer, Laura Joy continued tending to the cabbage she started growing in the Bonnie Plants Cabbage Growing Contest as a student in Michele Crawford’s class. As Joy prepared for the fourth grade
LPM Hosts Breakfast for New Students Liberty Park Middle School welcomed 28 new students in grades 6-8 with the seventh annual New Student Breakfast hosted by the LPMS Student Government Association. School counselors Stephanie Holcomb and Tre’ Munger coordinated the event along with SGA sponsors Anne Carter Finch and Courtney Burger. The event helped integrate the new students and SGA officers as they played “Get to Know You” games.
VHCS Awareness Team Fights Substance Abuse Vestavia Hills City Schools held the first meeting of its Drug Awareness Team on Sept. 16. The Drug Awareness Team, a new initiative in the fight against substance abuse among youth, consists of administrators from the district level, middle schools and high school; a representative from a local drug testing agency; a Drug Court judge; Parent Teacher Organization members; school counselors; and Brad Blount, a Vestavia Hills High School alumnus who speaks publicly about his recovery from drug addiction. Team members discussed programs that the city and school system are utilizing to raise awareness about substance abuse, including the school system’s new Voluntary Drug Testing Program and a recent “Help the Hills” town hall meeting. Attendees at the Sept. 16 meeting proposed several ideas, such as crosspromoting drug prevention events and providing parents with an online hub of resources to learn about drug prevention. “The team will likely expand as new needs are identified,” said Vestavia Hills Board of Education President Kym Prewitt. Another town hall meeting is set for Jan. 5.