• i enjoyed having you as my 7th grade english teacher, and i didnt want you to leave. i knew i was supposed to have you for developmental reading in 8th grade and i knew something was up when move up day came and i had mrs pishney teaching that class next year. Later that same evening, i asked my mother why mrs pishney was teaching your class. she said you were leaving our school and our state. she told me where you were going, and what you were doing. i was a little surprised that you were moving that far away, but i knew you would do well in milwaukee and you would have a happy marriage. as the last week of school aproached, i was thinking about what to give you as a good bye present. i wanted to give you a book, because you're an english teacher. So i scanned my shelves at home, and finally, on the bottom shelf, i found Halfway to the Sky. I knew it was perfect, even though hiking the the appalaichan mountains and leaving a small town school to get your masters degree are apsolutely nothing alike, but i didnt care. it was the title that was perfect. If she hadn't left our school, she probably never would be a professor, like she dreamed of being. Teaching at our school, she was just at the bottom of the mountain, but she's heading farther up the steep cliffside, and now shes halfway to the sky. i really wish you could read this Miss McDermott, but you're a lot higher than i am on the mountain right now, and thanks to all your encouragement in my writing, I'll see you at the top one day.