Submitted by Denair Unified School District
Talk about keeping a secret. For nearly a month, Air Force Airman Hannah Pointon, her former teacher Patti Morrissey and Denair Elementary School Principal Sara Michelena had been plotting how to surprise Pointon’s parents, Jody and Roger Jorge.
Pointon grew up in Denair. Her mother is the administrative assistant to the district superintendent. They are as close as mother and daughter can be. “She’s the other half of me,” is how Jody describes their bond.
So when Pointon told her parents before Thanksgiving that she wouldn’t be able to leave her base in San Antonio to come home for Christmas, it was an emotional blow. Jody, especially, was heartbroken. They never had been apart at the holidays. She and her Pointon talked and texted every day, but they didn’t expect to see each other until April.
Then Pointon’s plans changed. Only she didn’t tell her parents.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BAsvgMaLFwInstead, she reached out to Morrissey, whose fourth-grade students at Denair Elementary had “adopted” Pointon at the beginning of the school, just as Pointon, now 24, had done at the same age years ago to a soldier based in Iraq.
“It was all Hannah,” Morrissey said. “She texted me and said she was coming back, and it took off from there.”
Morrissey enlisted the help of Michelena, the school’s first-year principal, and the plans grew. Michelena had never met Pointon, but saw her mom almost every day. She knew how sad Jody Jorge was that her daughter wasn’t going to be home for Christmas. Continue reading ““I’ll Be Home For Christmas” Rings True in Denair” »