I knew her as Rosalyn at Davis Intermediate and she was a very sweet but awkward girl. Always pleasant but so mistreated by all of us as she was avoided and misjudged as one of the creepy kids. She lived very close to Gloria Gunn and being that Gloria's mother was very astute and a great mom to all of us, she insisted that Ros was always invited to all of the many house parties the Gunn's had for us those two years. Ross always came and always tried to engage the boys and they were brutal verbally to her or just walked away. I found it painful to watch but I was too much of a coward to approach and be a friend to her. We tend to be so cruel in those pre and early teen years; so self-serving and concerned what others think of us. Besides Gloria, Trishia Hoyt, Margie Highsmith, Debbie Garrett, Jo Deaver, and Wendy Griffin did what they could to insulate her but it was obvious that she was in pain and angst most of the time. I never gave her a moment of my time until high school and even then she was always sweet and cordial but her person carried some deep scars of early insecurity. Her death some many decades ago seemed a true theft of a real survivor. She was killed in a private airplane crash in her early twenties.
I hated the way Rosalyn was treated in junior high. I can remember whole groups of kids in bleachers, jumping up, screaming and running to get away from her. I stayed. I tried to be a friend to Rosalyn because I felt so terribly sorry for her. I remember when her parents had a pool put in and invited a ton of kids over. I just knew they had installed the pool in the hopes that Rosalyn could have some friends. I can still cry about it to this day. As a teacher I am very saddened and angered when I see this kind of behavior; I always try to address it and say to myself that I am doing it for Rosalyn. No human being should have to go through what she went through at such a vulnerable time in her life.
Rosalyn was a person to whom I always knew I had the capacity to reach out more, but seldom did. She was an attractive girl and she was a fun person in my eyes. I remember I enjoyed talking with her. I retain in my memory her voice, which was staccato like and rapid, betraying the insecurities which I had learned to obfuscate and deny. She was enchanting in way that a person from an exotic place is; she was mysterious and misunderstood. I let others form the basis of too many ill-formed thoughts about Rosalyn and I failed to appreciate the truth of her beauty. I tried, but tried too little to really know her.
The undercurrents in that sea of school and social groupings continually divided us into pools and eddies which defy understanding even now. Why do we devise such torment for those most vulnerable among us? I did little to make her feel more secure as a human being or more welcome at Davis Junior High or at Mesa. Benign neglect is not unlike indifference and I let the space between her and the rest of us grow.
I never took her by the hand and said: "We are all people"; nor made room for her on the bleachers or the quad that were over-crowed with too many people like myself. That privilege is denied me now and it makes me painfully aware that the human heart, when it is indifferent, knows no end to unkindness.
Randy Henkle
I knew her as Rosalyn at Davis Intermediate and she was a very sweet but awkward girl. Always pleasant but so mistreated by all of us as she was avoided and misjudged as one of the creepy kids. She lived very close to Gloria Gunn and being that Gloria's mother was very astute and a great mom to all of us, she insisted that Ros was always invited to all of the many house parties the Gunn's had for us those two years. Ross always came and always tried to engage the boys and they were brutal verbally to her or just walked away. I found it painful to watch but I was too much of a coward to approach and be a friend to her. We tend to be so cruel in those pre and early teen years; so self-serving and concerned what others think of us. Besides Gloria, Trishia Hoyt, Margie Highsmith, Debbie Garrett, Jo Deaver, and Wendy Griffin did what they could to insulate her but it was obvious that she was in pain and angst most of the time. I never gave her a moment of my time until high school and even then she was always sweet and cordial but her person carried some deep scars of early insecurity. Her death some many decades ago seemed a true theft of a real survivor. She was killed in a private airplane crash in her early twenties.Shelley Tork (Raker)
I hated the way Rosalyn was treated in junior high. I can remember whole groups of kids in bleachers, jumping up, screaming and running to get away from her. I stayed. I tried to be a friend to Rosalyn because I felt so terribly sorry for her. I remember when her parents had a pool put in and invited a ton of kids over. I just knew they had installed the pool in the hopes that Rosalyn could have some friends. I can still cry about it to this day. As a teacher I am very saddened and angered when I see this kind of behavior; I always try to address it and say to myself that I am doing it for Rosalyn. No human being should have to go through what she went through at such a vulnerable time in her life.Don Farris
Rosalyn was a person to whom I always knew I had the capacity to reach out more, but seldom did. She was an attractive girl and she was a fun person in my eyes. I remember I enjoyed talking with her. I retain in my memory her voice, which was staccato like and rapid, betraying the insecurities which I had learned to obfuscate and deny. She was enchanting in way that a person from an exotic place is; she was mysterious and misunderstood. I let others form the basis of too many ill-formed thoughts about Rosalyn and I failed to appreciate the truth of her beauty. I tried, but tried too little to really know her.
The undercurrents in that sea of school and social groupings continually divided us into pools and eddies which defy understanding even now. Why do we devise such torment for those most vulnerable among us? I did little to make her feel more secure as a human being or more welcome at Davis Junior High or at Mesa. Benign neglect is not unlike indifference and I let the space between her and the rest of us grow.
I never took her by the hand and said: "We are all people"; nor made room for her on the bleachers or the quad that were over-crowed with too many people like myself. That privilege is denied me now and it makes me painfully aware that the human heart, when it is indifferent, knows no end to unkindness.