[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 64 (Wednesday, May 5, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Page S4736]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     MARY BETH BOYER BLACK, MISSISSIPPI'S 1999 TEACHER OF THE YEAR

  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I join my other colleagues here today in 
recognizing National Teacher Appreciation Week. I am the son of a 
schoolteacher. My mother taught school for 19 years, between first and 
the sixth grade. She finally had to leave teaching because in those 
days teachers basically could not make enough money to live on. She 
wound up in bookkeeping and broadcasting. I also worked for a 
university for 3 years, and I have a very serious appreciation for our 
teachers and the jobs they do.
  I have stayed in touch, over the years, with my second-, third-, and 
fourth-grade teachers at Duck Hill, MS. I don't know why, but I 
particularly remember those three and have always appreciated them. I 
guess we remember the ones who teach us to write and do the basic 
reading. They were wonderful women and wonderful people, and they 
inspired me in many ways.
  So in appreciation of this National Teacher Appreciation Week, I will 
quote from the Bible. It says:

       Train up the child in the way he should go, and when he's 
     old, he will not depart from it.

  Those were the words of Solomon. That is good advice from Solomon.
  So today I want to pay particular attention to our Mississippi 
Teacher of the Year, Mary Beth Black. She teaches chemistry, physics, 
and advanced placement physics. I remember those courses. They are the 
reason I didn't go into pharmacy or med school. Biology, chemistry, 
physics--I took all the college preparatory courses, and I look back 
now and I know that I was wasting space. I was really never destined to 
major in the sciences. But it is so important that we have teachers who 
inspire students in that area. If we are going to be competitive in the 
future, in the next millennium, and participate in the world economy, 
we are going to have to have students who are good in science, physics, 
computer sciences, and the sciences in general.
  In order for them to learn what they need to know and to be inspired 
in that field, you need great teachers like this teacher, the ``Teacher 
of the Year'' in Mississippi, who teaches at Emory, MS, a wonderful 
lady with a wonderful record.
  She points, interestingly enough, to her second-grade teacher who, 
she noted, inspired her when she was 7 years old--that she knew when 
she was 7 she could be anything she chose to be: She could be a brain 
surgeon, she could drive a fire truck, or go to the Moon. But this 
second-grade teacher inspired her to want to be a teacher. She always 
wanted to be a teacher--and to be more than just a teacher, to be an 
inspiration to young people.
  She said:

       Second grade can be challenging. My problem was cursive 
     writing or ``real writing'' as we second graders called it. 
     No matter how hard I tried, my loops and swoops and tilts 
     were never as good as my peers.

  ``Until now,'' she said, ``school had been great.'' But in this 
instance it got to be a problem and a challenge. But her second-grade 
teacher, Mrs. Hurt, worked with her and taught her and then became an 
inspiration to her.
  So today I give thanks and appreciation to all of our teachers across 
our great country, and in my State of Mississippi to the ``Mrs. Hurts'' 
who taught in those small, sometimes one- and two-classroom buildings 
as my mother did, who not only taught the course but inspired a 
generation of more teachers such as Mary Beth Black, Mississippi's 
Teacher of the Year.
  An 18th-century American historian, Henry Brooks Adams, said: ``A 
teacher affects eternity; (she) can never tell where (her) influence 
stops.''
  So our teachers influence our young people, and they affect the 
future of our country and the world. Thanks to all of them.
  I yield the floor.

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