Piute County School District,

Many of you had the opportunity to hear from Kevin Brown at the Sevier School District professional development day in Richfield. Kevin Brown is a great speaker and motivator. For those that didn’t get to attend, the highlight of his one hour speech was his apple pancakes story. I can’t tell the story as well as Kevin did, but I’ll try to provide a summary.

Kevin Brown has a son with autism. At 9 years old their family went on a vacation to Disney World in Orlando. On the first day of over a week at the resort they ate breakfast at a restaurant in the hotel. When Kevin's wife began explaining to the waitress that their son had some dietary restrictions, she sent the cook to their table. The cook’s name was Bea and she very kindly took notes on what the boy, Josh, could eat. When she asked what he wanted to eat he responded, “apple pancakes,” because that was his favorite. Bea kindly said she didn’t have the ingredients to make apple pancakes and found an alternative that he liked.

Because of Bea’s kindness, Josh wanted to eat breakfast in the same place the next morning. He even started referring to her as “Aunt Bea.” When they sat down on the second day for breakfast, the waitress again asked for the cooks help. Bea came and asked for their order. Josh immediately responded that he wanted apple pancakes and his parents had a moment of exasperation thinking they knew what was coming. But then Bea said that was not a problem and she would have the order right out. Kevin jumped up and stopped her to say “I thought you didn’t have the ingredients for apple pancakes.” Bea responded “I didn’t yesterday, I stopped at the store last night and got the ingredients.” “What do you mean you got the ingredients?” “I stopped at the store and bought them, there are stores all over Florida, anyone can go in.” Astounded Kevin said “Why would you do that?” to which Bea responded “Because that’s what he wanted.” The Brown’s were so impressed with Bea's kindness and concern for them that they ate breakfast there every morning and talked to “Aunt Bea” everyday.

In the first IEP meeting the Browns went to with their son Josh they were told their son would probably never graduate from high school and would have a difficult road ahead. Through a lot of work by Josh and his mom, Josh graduated high school with honors. After graduation Kevin told Josh he would take him on a vacation anywhere he wanted to go. Josh responded “I want to go see Aunt Bea.” Which they did several times. They became lifelong friends with Aunt Bea.

It’s an amazing story of the impact kindness can have on people. Stories like that are repeated over and over in classrooms. Working in education we have seen a lot of instances where the love of a teacher has made a lifelong friendship. Thank you for seeing our students' wants and needs and making them feel loved. 

Eat some apple pancakes and have a great week 21,

Koby