If I contact the school counselor, she will first ask me if I’ve discussed the problem with the teacher, for this is protocol. However, I don’t want to talk to him. I know I am prejudiced against him, and I may come off as combative, which is never productive. (Me? Seriously? Well, yes.) But I clearly have to do something, because my daughter is failing this class after only 5 weeks, with 15 more to go that will surely be wasted and even traumatic for her. Feeling impotent and frustrated.

I was very sad to hear of her passing because she was one of the nicest human beings I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing.

NORMAN — Mass of Christian burial for Lorraine Stephens, 74, of Norman, will be 10 a.m. Monday at St. Mark the Evangelist Catholic Church. Arrangements are trusted to the care of Primrose Funeral Service.

I checked the newspapers in the Oklahoma area this morning and found Lorraine’s ‘Death Notice’ in the Norman Transcript. There was no obituary…nothing that told of what a great gal our Lorraine was. I say ‘our’ Lorraine because she gave a little bit of herself to all of us. Each time she edited a book…signed a contract…called to give a bit of advice or took a phone call from any of us she gave us all she could.

I know I was in awe of her and I considered myself a close friend. She, patiently, taught me all I know about editing and copy editing. She was more than willing to share her skills. She wrote three books and had more in the works but when she became a part of Wings ePress she let go of those prospective manuscripts and spent her time helping others bring their books to publication. She was so very proud of Wings ePress and the authors it represented and it was fun to talk to her because she knew her authors and staff so well. I never heard her say a negative thing about anyone in the 15+ years I knew her.

We got to see Lorraine last month. Her death hit me so hard because she looked so good when we went for our visit. We planned to spend about half an hour with her because we didn’t want to tire her but we, reluctantly, left over two hours after we got there. It turned out that we had so much to share with her about Wings and we tried to answer all of the questions she had about authors and the company. She talked a bit about coming back to Wings part-time in the near future.

She looked fine! She sat in her chair and carried on her conversation just like she always had. The only thing in her little apartment that even hinted of the fact that she had been ill was her wheelchair which I sat in because of the lack of seating space. I knew she had suffered some strokes since Bruce and I had seen her last but she showed no signs of it.

She showed me a new quilt pattern she was working on and talked about the quilting class that she has started when she first got there. She joked a bit about trying to teach some of the residents how to quilt. She said she never got past the introductory class. The bad thing about working with the residents with Alzheimers is that they remembered to show up but forgot all that she taught them from week to week. She laughed a lot as she relayed stories about her stay in ‘the assisted living’ place she was calling home. It was nice and she didn’t have to worry about going through the nightmare of falling and not having anyone around her help her. She never wanted to go through that experience again so she felt that the kind of facility she was in served a real purpose.

Lorraine was a wise woman. When we started Wings ePress there was so much we could have done wrong but Lorraine understood the publishing industry better than anyone else I have met since. She kept us from making some major mistakes. She was the kind of teacher that everyone remembered…the one who taught you things you didn’t forget. She will be sorely missed.

Linda Voth
Wings ePress

Cheryl

http://www.facebook.com/pages/.....3308108341

That’s it!
Thanks again