My Teachers: Sixth Grade

In early June 1988, your writer here receives his 6th grade certificate from the now Doctor (and no longer Mister) Roger McCluney, principal, in the 1988 Sixth Grade Recognition Ceremony at Alexander Elementary School.

Hello, readers. First of all, let me say that this post is a day late. I have been posting my teacher articles on Tuesdays as a general rule. But today, as you astute readers will likely already know, is Wednesday.

There are a couple of reasons for this. First, yesterday was a busy day, with several things that just needed doing. It was, for example, Election Day for the 2026 Primary Elections, Amy and I hadn’t voted early, and so we had to travel (I’m sorry—got to travel) approximately 1000 feet to our local polling place to vote. I had other work I had to do yesterday, and we also prepared supper together. (If you’re curious, it was chicken rollups, loaded mashed potatoes, and green beans.)

Another reason is that it’s sort of fitting in a way for my sixth grade post to be a day late. I’ve mentioned elsewhere in this series that, a week or so prior to the start of the school year in August, class lists were posted on the gym doors at Alexander Elementary. It was always mildly exciting to be driven over there to see who our teacher was going to be, and who was going to be in the class along with us.

Then, of course, we’d go to Roses (this was just before Walmart broke on the scene, after all), and get our Trapper Keepers and wide-ruled paper.

In August of 1987, though, there was a bit of a difference. There was a list of sixth graders on the gym doors with my name included, but at the top, where the teacher’s last name would have traditionally been, there was nothing but a sort of marked-over area. It looked, thinking back, like there was some kind of hasty change going on or something.

So it was, then, that those of us who were in that particular class had no idea who our teacher was going to be until the first day of school. We could then lay eyes on him or her, and all would be well. Or not, I guess.

All ended up being well. I also mentioned elsewhere that my dad often dropped me off at school on his way to drink coffee and solve the world’s problems at Smith’s Drugs with his buddies. Those of us who were dropped early gathered in the lunchroom before everyone else got there and we could go on to our classrooms. There was always a teacher or two walking around and monitoring us (and shooting the breeze with us), and I remember the first morning of sixth grade well. Mr. Larry Henson, whom I’d just had for fifth grade the year before, happened to be in the lunchroom that morning, and my friend Ben and I mentioned to him that we had no idea who our teacher was going to be, and asked if he knew.

“Oh, you’re going to be in Mr. Helton’s class,” Mr. Henson told us. Okay, so this was going to be a dude again. This further piqued our curiosity.

Mr. Steven Helton, we soon found out, was a young man in his mid-twenties. He was married with a young son and was (and still is) a very health-conscious individual. This was to be his teaching debut.

Mr. Helton is shown here in a dark, blurry picture (featuring my finger, one of the main culprits) on Recognition Day in his classroom, looking snazzy in a tan sports coat. You can see unclear images also of Kay, Jamey, and Kevin. There will be a few more classroom pics from that day in just a minute.

Thinking back, it seems to me that I often sat with, and ate lunch alongside, my teachers most years at Alexander. I’ve previously mentioned that with Mr. Henson, and I remember eating with Mr. Helton as well. It’s not that I was brownnosing or anything like that. I, of course, can only speak for myself, but I enjoyed eating with them and talking to them about things outside the realm of academia.

There was one occasion when we were talking about health-related things with Mr. Helton at lunch, and he informed us that his cholesterol level was 85. Now, I know he was a young man then. But that’s still a bit low. He always had sliced vegetables, tuna, and healthy things to eat.

The lunch table with Mr. Helton was also where I first seriously entertained the thought of compact discs.

Until then, as those of you who were around during the eighties will know, tapes completely ruled the roost as far as audio recordings were concerned. I had lots and lots of them from various artists, and I even snuck in and played radio DJ on my sister’s stereo from time to time. Well, she was off at college, and I was sure she wouldn’t mind as long as I didn’t break anything.

But we were sitting there at lunch with Mr. Helton one day, and he began extolling the virtues of CDs, their ease of use, and their good sound quality to us. And, lo and behold, that was where the tide went before the digital age came along, as we all know.

We found out Mr. Helton had a kind of inside track on audio media. His wife worked at Sound Shop, a record store that was in our local mall. There was something interesting involving this in our classroom: Up near the blackboard was a pink box with question marks drawn all over it and the word “CHANCE” conspicuously displayed. There was a slot in the top, and whenever one of us got some sort of a commendation, a slip of paper with our name on it would go in the box. Every so often, every month or so, Mr. Helton would draw a name out. Whoever had their name on that piece of paper won a free album of their choice from Sound Shop.

Even though I never won, I always thought that was pretty awesome.

Mr. Helton turned out to be an excellent teacher. He was fair. He could be firm, but he also smiled a lot. He had a mustache for the first part of the year, and when he came to school with it shorn off one day, he grinned all day at our reactions and comments. And it was he who informed us that Mr. McCluney, our principal, had received his doctorate and was now to be addressed as Dr. McCluney.

One thing I loved (I’m sure you’ll be surprised) about sixth grade is that we did a lot of creative writing in there. For example, we were tasked with writing a detailed description of our houses, apartments, mobile homes, or wherever we lived. We got to describe the car of our dreams. That was fun, but I had a hard time deciding between 911s and Testarossas and Countaches. (I settled on the Porsche. It was red.)

At the end of the year, we had a sort of recognition ceremony in the gym and received certificates for successfully completing sixth grade, the last grade at Alexander Elementary. It was explained to us that it wasn’t a graduation ceremony, per se, because we weren’t graduating from anything just yet. But we were going to be recognized. I’ll post a few pictures below of that day. You’ve seen one already as sort of a summary picture. There are many more in my arsenal, including one of me standing at the lectern in the gym and calling out the Last Will and Testaments. But I’ll spare you a few minutes of your time and just sprinkle a few here.

Here are the guys in Mr. Helton’s class after the recognition ceremony, some in the process of making faces, of course. (L-R) Jamey, Reco, Mike, me, Chad, Kevin, Ben, Jeremy, Sean. This image and the next one of the girls are courtesy of Kevin Pleasant. He’s in front there, with the blue shirt and black tie.

And here are the girls. This one’s tougher, as some girls’ faces are hidden, but I think it’s Susan, Christina, Lisa, Michelle, Penny, Crystal, Kassy, Stephanie, Kay, Candice, Miranda, and Melissa from left to right.

Here I sit in front of the blackboard, with firm lip and certificate and awards in hand. The aforementioned Chance box is visible to the right. I think my mother took this one, or maybe my sister.

Stephanie gives rabbit ears to me. I make a face. In the background you can see Miranda again, a couple of bulletin boards, and the old Swish-and-Spit sink. Kevin took this picture.

I’ve encountered Mr. Helton a few times in the decades since I was in his class. Once we ran across him and his family at our county’s July 4th fireworks celebration. And another time, in our twenties, my friend Kevin and I were working out at a local fitness facility, and there was Mr. Helton. We spoke to him and said hello to a friend he had with him. He told his friend “These two fellows right here were in the first class I ever taught.”

Much more recently, I heard Mr. Helton on the radio. He was on a local station a few weeks ago promoting a fitness class he teaches at our county’s Senior Center. He’s still at it, and I’m glad. Thank you, sir, for the effort, the excellence, and the amiability. And thank you for the creative writing, and for showing us how to properly arrange it, with main themes and supporting details. You helped make me better for it, that’s for sure. God bless you, sir.

And may He bless you, dear reader. He’s good!