Teacher - Mr. D. Huggins

In grade eleven I took an exclusive creative writing course. Students had to apply for the course by writing a ten page short story to be read by the teacher. He had picked his class every year and I was chosen. ​

Things started well enough. We did a LOT of reading. We were given a list a of books and each one had a number of days. The expectation was; pick a book for the list, read it, write a paper, and submit it in the time allotted by the number on the book. This was on top of all the other class work from our other courses. 

I was so excited to finally write my first story. It was about a couple of teenagers whose plane crashed in the Arizona badlands. They gathered what they could and while trying to find help found a small town that seemed to be lost in time. ​

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The girl had been hurt in the crash so she stayed in the town and the boy (I don’t remember their names) took one of the towns horses to go and get help. ​​

​Long story short when he found the help he was looking for, they told him there was no town. It had been there, but it was abandon hundreds of years ago. They returned to find the girl was safe, sleeping soundly on the remains of a dirt covered bed. The thriving town was gone and there was no trace of the people who had been there when she laid down.

I got back a book report with a note that said “Come to the Lit. Office at lunch”. I did and the first thing he said was, “Who wrote this?” and dropped my story on the edged of his desk. I told him I did and he called me a liar. He accused me of plagiarizing it and that I was being removed my his class and my stuck a post it on my story with my new English room. ​

I was heartbroken. He wouldn’t listen to anything I said because it was “too well written for a kid to have written it”. ​

The next day I went to my new class. I was moved from advanced creative writing to basic general English. I knew the teacher, he was also my welding teacher. His class room was a portable on the far side of the school. He started the class reading and we went outside. He said he was surprised that I was added to his class asked why I was moved. I told him everything, he told me not to worry and asked to read my story. ​

Teachers have connections. I don’t who or how, but Mr. Huggins saved me. I met him and the other teacher in the guidance office a few weeks later. The other teacher apologized for his “rush to judgment” and offered to allow me to return to his class. I asked, if any, what other options I had. Mr. Huggins said I could stay in his class and he would oversee my creative writing work. ​

I did the work for his basic class as well as the additional work of the other class. I was allowed to attend all the guest speakers the writing class got to enjoy without having to deal with the other teacher. 

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But that wasn’t all. I met Mr. Huggins at a chapters bookstore one night and while I waited for my mom and his wife (two different people) to walk every inch of the store, we went to the comfy chairs and talked about my new writing project. 

​It became a weekly meeting. We would sit at a table in the Starbucks section and work while my mom and his wife looked around the store. With all his extra help and support I was able to ace both the creative writing class and his English class while keeping up with my other class work. ​

For years we met at Chapters once a month for a couple hours. ​