All that is proper and dignified, all that is elegant and genteel, and all that embodies “class” are diminished this week. High school English teachers have lost the model which shaped the literary skills of most of Wilkes County for decades. But Mrs. Frances Duke’s high expectations and demand for excellence will continue through those of us who were blessed to have been taught by her.

I am sorry to admit that I had too little contact with Mrs. Duke after high school – we simply didn’t move in the same circles. Therefore this writing is just to pay tribute to the profound effect she had on me as just one of her students. There are many of us whose most vivid memories of our proper education are of Mrs. Duke. Few teachers will ever be better.

Now, being more or less in the writing business, I especially appreciate those eighth grade days on the back hall at W-WHS learning the finer points of the English language.

Mrs. Duke taught me and thousands of others that you can’t “bring” something to another place, you have to “bring” it here or “take” it there. You can’t “let” something alone, you must “leave” it alone; or “let” us go across town, but never “leave” us go across town.

Frankly, that one always puzzled me more than most because I just couldn’t fathom anyone getting “let” and “leave” confused.)

She is the reason so many of us now say, when we hear the language misspoken, “What would Mrs. Duke say if she heard that?”

She is the reason most any Wilkes Countian under the age of 60 can recite, “Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink. Water, water everywhere and all the boards did shrink.”

Who can forget the endless diagramming of sentences? But now, when we hear or read an impossibly awful run-on sentence, we say, “Diagram that!” and then actually, if only in our minds, try. [Yes, I did try to diagram that sentence but with three verbs, multiple objects, complicated phrases, and an odd clause, Mrs. Duke may be the only one who would have been capable.]

What she taught stuck. What she taught mattered – it still does. The precision of language is vital to society and she drilled that into us.

These days we see illiteracy as a rampant disease and even some high school teachers can’t seem to construct a proper sentence, much less string two or three of them together to make a proper paragraph. The rules are out the window and the understanding of the language shrinks by the hour.

If only Mrs. Duke were still in charge.

– Sparky Newsome, editor