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Marie Atkinson retired last year after serving the school in a variety of roles since its inception some 24 years ago. Marie, besides serving as my personal "home base," started the CBC campus 13 years ago with little more than a building and a cloud of dust. Marie’s service was exceptional; seminal and sustaining to the school’s academic orientation and tone. Watching Marie teach the legions as they moved through the school draws in my mind an image from, strangely enough, a hardware book which reads: To sharpen a knife properly, lay the knife blade flat against the stone, then with the cutting edge still against the stone, raise the back edge about 15o. The instructions go on to force the knife repeatedly across the stone warning the reader that resistance and friction are crucial to the process and will produce heat and possible discomfort. The result will be a sharp and honed instrument ready and able to more easily perform its proper function for having been in the hands of the sharpener. This noble work over two decades of Marie’s so skillful "measur’d tread" honing students’ abilities, work ethic and intellect is not to be adequately addressed by an author such as myself: it is a sustained giving of self and a continuous courageous effort of will to improve each student that I find too noble and profound to encapsulate. I defer to Whitman who outdoes both me and the hardware manual. By the curb toward the edge of the flagging,
A knife-grinder works at his wheel sharpening a great knife,
Bending over he carefully holds it to the stone, by foot and knee,
With measur’d tread he turns rapidly, as he presses with light but firm hand,
Forth issue then in copious golden jets,
Sparkles from the wheel.
It is, of course, the nature of the process that the steady stone wears: continually giving up an almost imperceptible part of itself. So it is that the nights around this area are, Marie, lighted magnificently thanks to you. Greg Homer, Headmaster
Summer, 2008 Good News
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