The Shared Stories of Canyon Community Connections

By Carol Woolum Roberts

When I was growing up, my mom always liked to talk about how people were connected, or how she, herself, was connected to people. She loved telling these kinds of stories.

This was especially true about former students she had taught, either at Silver King Elementary, Sunnyside Elementary, or as the Gifted and Talented Facilitator for the Kellogg School District.

I come across this naturally when I, too, love to find connections with people.  It is fun for me to talk to people I just met and find a common bond through people we know or places we have lived or visited. We share a part of the same story.

This week, Paul and I are culminating our Canyon Elementary Artists in Residence project with the students performing on the stage for family and friends.  Today the fourth and fifth grade class presented their five different fables and folk tales.  As the various parents, grandparents and friends arrived and took their seats, I started making connections. Stories started forming in my head about my connections with the families of the students.

Two women came in who I had known most of my life.  I asked who they were here to see. It was so fun to realize that one of the students had a great-grandfather who was a very good friend of my dad as I was growing up, and the great-grandmother of one of the other students had been my babysitter when I was in first and second grade.

Many of the students have parents that Paul and I had as students at Kellogg High School.  We made many of those connections last year when we first worked with the Canyon students. It was fun to reconnect with these parents last year and share stories about working with their children with each of them.

There are a couple of brothers whose great-great grandparents lived in our neighborhood growing up.  Early on, one of these boys was sharing his middle name on the first day we met him, and his middle name was the same as our former neighbor. This gave me an opportunity to tell him I knew his great-great grandfather.  I also babysat his grandpa when I was younger.

One of the students was dropped off by his grandmother this morning before the other students arrived.  She has been a bus driver for the school district and took many of Paul’s drama and speech students on trips.  This student was so surprised we knew his grandmother, and that we remember his mom and dad as students at Kellogg High School as well.

That is one of the reasons I love living in the town I grew up in.  I love being connected to people. I love it when we can share similar stories with one another. 

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What kind of connections did you make this week that helped you share a story with someone?  Share your experience with us.

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