Week 3: Giving Thanks

During this time of giving thanks, I just want to say how grateful I am for the names of the schools on southern campus in Shenandoah County, Virginia. Honey Run, derived from a nearby mountain creek that feeds into Smith Creek and thus onto the North Fork of the Shenandoah River, is such an apt image for what happens to elementary school children as they move into North Fork Middle School.

In personal conversations, I always hear how much people love the view of Short Mountain and The Knob from Mountain View High School. It's the most iconic aspect of the school's location: the mountain view. The presence of mountains is something students - no matter their gender, religion, ethnicity, or political affiliation - from Edinburg to Mount Jackson, Quicksburg to New Market, Basye to Fort Valley can celebrate and savor with commonality.

Even as early as the 1730s, when the first settlers were arriving in the county, the waterways and mountain views must have been as inspiring and vital as they are to us today. They are peace-filled landmarks and bring people together in positive ways, which is precisely what a school system is designed to do. And for this, I am grateful.

Lieutenant Governor Winsome Sears has some fabulous quotes. I'll share one of them here because it follows this theme of gratefulness: “We have a saying in church, ‘I may not be what I’m supposed to be, but I ain’t what I used to be.’ And that’s America. We are not back in 1963, when my father arrived at the height of the Civil Rights Movement and things were very bad for us as Black people. Are there changes that need to be made? Most assuredly. There is no country in this world that does not suffer from racism…But you have seen people who are dying to cross the border into America because they know that if they can get their foot on American soil, the trajectory of their lives will change — as it did for my father.”

I'm grateful Shenandoah County, like America, is on this side of the Civil Rights Movement, and that it is a place of hope and refuge for so many people from so many backgrounds. And that is precisely why the new names are so important, not only for the mental health of our children, but also the well being and commonality of everyone in our community.

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