The thumbnail image is from the dedication page for my debut novel Legacy. I thought it would be a nice way to honor one of the greatest teachers I've ever had in my life. 

I only had Ms. Nunley for one year, but she held me to an incredibly high standard. You see, when I attended high school, I was what you'd call a slacker (but not in the traditional sense of the word). Every year up to my junior year, I would figure out the bare minimum I had to do to get by with an A in a particular class, or in the very least a high B. And I was successful.

Then came Ms. Nunley's English class junior year. For her essays, we had to hand-write TEN pages, front and back. Ten physical pieces of paper. By hand. In pen. Any mistakes made meant having to rewrite up to two whole pages. I hated it, but knew what I could do to get by.

I'll never forget one day she handed back an essay. I looked mine over and smiled at the B that I barely tried for, but then frowned. Next to my grade were the words "See me after class". Those are never the words a high school student wants to read, much less on a paper that took hours to write.

The bell rang, all my friends left, and I walked up to the front of the room where Ms. Nunley sat behind her desk. I held up the essay and said, "You wanted to see me?"

I'll never forget her response. "I do. What's that?" She pointed to the B at the top of the paper. 

"It's a B." My smart mouth was wise enough to keep silent and not say something about how she should recognize the second letter of the alphabet (though I may have thought it).

The rest of the conversation went like this:

"Why did I give you a B?" she asked.

"I don't know Ms. Nunley," I said. "Getting a B is fine. What's the big deal?"

She shook her head. "I gave you a B because you gave me your B paper. I want you to take that home, rewrite it, and bring me back your A paper."

And I did. 

For the first time in my life, a teacher actually saw what I was capable of and held me to that standard. Something changed in me that day. As a direct result of that single conversation, I worked harder in all my classes, not just hers. I stopped figuring out the bare minimum to skate by with a "good enough" grade. 

Eventually, she and I became friends. I wrote short stories, plays, and a little bit of poetry in my senior year of high school. She read every single one, with joy and pride, offering her support and encouragement after each. She was also the first person to ever tell me that she thought I would write a book one day. 

The world would be a far better place with a few more Ms. Nunleys in it.