Things Remembered

CRESCENT CITY — A Middleton-Burney Elementary School teacher known for providing former students with personal memorabilia at their graduations is retiring at the end of the school year.

Between teaching kindergarten and first grade, Lynn Skelton has worked at the school for 42 years, arriving in 1979 from Florida State after a job fair.

“I just sent applications to different places,” Skelton said.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused some changes to Skelton’s class of 20 students. Her tables are spread out with fewer students, and they can no longer gather on the floor for storytime. Masks make it harder for teachers to tell what students say, she said, and meetings with parents now occur via video call.

“The challenge is trying to keep them spread out and in front of me,” Skelton said. “I think it was easier to build relationships when students were so close.”

Skelton advises parents to read to their children despite there being several distractions like smartphones. She recalled her students’ energy and direct way of asking questions.

“They’ll (ask if I’m) 25 or 30 and I’ll say, ‘That’s close enough.’ Four years ago, I let my hair go naturally gray, so kids are more likely to call me grandma now,” Skelton laughed. “One kid I had this year asked me if I painted my hair or if it’s really that color. Kids will ask anything.” 

Skelton looked over an envelope during her planning period Wednesday morning. It’s stuffed with former students’ pictures, drawings, assignments, and news clippings either from Skelton’s class or prior to graduating high school.

She started passing out the envelopes the first year her former students graduated high school in the early 1990s. Skelton didn’t recall where she got the idea from, but several clippings came from the Putnam County Courier Journal, which routinely featured Crescent City’s three schools.

“I just started putting those things in a file as I read something about kids I once taught. That file folder became a box and then two boxes,” Skelton said. “The things that are in there vary.”

Putnam County School District board member Holly Pickens, who has worked as a senior sponsor at Crescent City High School, joked last week she didn’t know how big Skelton’s file cabinets were.

“That meant the world to those kids. The first year, I was just astonished,” Pickens said. “And then it just kept happening and happening.”

Skelton, and her husband, Brad, who also works for the school district, are also chain gang officials who move the down markers at CCHS football games. It’s hard to think about leaving, she said, but the timing felt right due to her husband retiring at the same time. 

With less than a month before the last day of school at Middleton-Burney, Skelton has taught several children of former students, including teachers at each of Crescent City’s three schools. 

“I’ve never had a third generation, though probably if I stayed a few more years that would happen,” Skelton said.

Middleton-Burney third-grade teacher Kayla Guevara said Skelton was one of the reasons she decided to become a teacher.

“She was so caring and so helpful as a teacher,” Guevara said.

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