06/17/2026
Can you think of one person who helped make you the person you are today?
Mine was Dotty Hemminger.
She was my eighth-grade teacher - a 4'9" redhead who weighed about one hundred pounds and certainly wasn't physically intimidating. But I quickly discovered she was a force to be reckoned with, and I was no match for her. As a junior high football player, I thought I was tough. I had quite an attitude. I was also a terrible student.
That wasn't because I lacked ability. Three years earlier, my fifth-grade English teacher had asked us to write a story. When I turned mine in, he kept me after class. "You didn't write this," he said. He was convinced it was too well written for someone my age.
He failed me.
That day I made a decision.
I would never shine in school again.
So, three years later, I walked into Dotty Hemminger's classroom determined to keep that promise to myself. I didn't apply myself. I rarely turned in assignments. I stayed comfortably under the radar. About two months into the school year, she handed out a three-page story filled with dialogue—but without a single punctuation mark. Our assignment was simple: punctuate the entire story during class and hand it in before the bell rang.
Since it wasn't homework and I had nothing better to do, I completed it. A few days later she asked me to stay after class. My stomach tightened. The last time a teacher had asked me to stay after class, it changed my life.
As I stood in front of her desk, she said,
"For the last two months you've been getting Cs, Ds, and Fs. I assumed you simply didn't understand the material. That assumption ends today. You were the first student to turn in the punctuation assignment... and the only student who scored 100 percent. I've realized you're not incapable. You're capable. You're just very lazy. So from now on, your life is going to get very difficult in my class."
She smiled.
"And you are going to write more than you ever thought possible."
She meant every word. She made me write essays. Poetry. She put me in charge of editing the class newspaper. She demanded more from me than any teacher ever had. It was the toughest class I had ever taken. Ironically...I liked it so much that I signed up for her ninth-grade English class.
Why?
Because she believed in me more than I believed in myself. She helped me discover a future I couldn't yet see. And if it weren't for Dotty Hemminger, you wouldn't be reading these words today.
Looking back now, I realize Dotty gave me something far more valuable than an education. She gave me permission to become the person I was capable of becoming. More than fifty years later, we are still in contact.
Now let me ask you a question. Who was your "Dotty Hemminger?" Almost everyone has one. Someone who believed in you before you believed in yourself. Someone who saw possibilities you couldn't yet see. Someone who quietly changed the direction of your life.
Who was that person?
I'd love to hear your story.
