Other than a family member, who was the most influential person in your life?

I definitely would not have answered my parents even if it were not included in this question. The MOST influential person in my life was without a doubt my seventh grade math teacher, Mrs. Csilla DePue. What set her apart from any other teacher? She cared. After suffering one of the worst beatings of my childhood (at the hands of my father) she was the only teacher who asked me what happened or would even look at me. Other teacher just turned their head so they wouldn't have to see my two black eyes and all the other visible marks. I still remember the day she held me up from my next class to talk to me.

I was scared to death that the shop teacher, Mr. Granger, would write me up and when I got home I would get another beating. She told me she would take care of it but I was doubtful especially when I arrived at shop twenty minutes into the class and the teacher told me I was late. She must have talked to him because not another word was ever said about it.


I moved schools in eighth grade over three hundred miles away. She told me to drop her a line and I did, and she wrote me back!

I continued to keep in contact with her throughout high school and then in the Marines and on into my civilian life. She was like my mother. When I told her I was going to attend DeVry to get my degree in electronics engineering, Mrs. DePue and my soon to be wife was the only ones who believed I could make it. My own family told me I couldn't do it! She was there for my graduation from DeVry. I lived my dream of owning an electronics repair business for many years before deciding to go back to school to get my degree in mathematics following in her footsteps of becoming a mathematics teacher. When I have a student in trouble I always reflect back on those days of seventh grade and that wonderful teacher I had who took the time to listen to a troubled child who needed someone they could talk to who wouldn't judge them.

That's my story, what's yours?