"DAVID STROUPE!"

 “DAVID STROUPE!”

We were grateful and blessed to have our family with us over the Christmas holidays – Susan, David, Erin, Emma and Zoe.  While we were together, we wondered what the holidays would look like in 2024 – would we be able to get together as usual?  If so, what kind of mood would we and the country be in, just after the presidential election of 2024?   

    We have all gone now in different directions – Emma to Paris for a semester abroad; Zoe back to her senior year in high school at Interlocken Arts Academy in Michigan;  David and Erin back to teaching at the University of Utah;  Susan back to all things theater in Baltimore.  Caroline and I will be celebrating our 50th wedding anniversary this summer – mark your calendars now for Saturday, June 22, when we will gather at Hawkins Hall in Legacy Park Decatur to celebrate.

    This week we are celebrating David’s 44th birthday on Wednesday, January 31.  He was born on a snowy night in Norfolk, Virginia, and before he was a year old, we moved to Nashville to be closer to family.  When he was 3, we moved to Decatur in 1983 to be pastors at Oakhurst, and he would have Decatur as his home base until he moved to Houston in 2002.  He has since lived in Seattle (where he got his PhD in science education), in East Lansing, Michigan, where he taught and rose in the field to get tenure and become an associate professor at Michigan State, and be an award winning author.  Just this month we learned that he has been named the winner of a big award for his book  "Growing and Sustaining Student-Centered Science Classrooms".  It is the AACTE Gloria Ladson-Billings Award.  Here's the link if you want to read about it. https://edprepmatters.net/2024/01/university-of-utahs-david-stroupe-to-receive-2024-aacte-gloria-j-ladson-billings-outstanding-book-award/.  He and Erin moved last summer to Salt Lake City, where they are both teaching at the University of Utah. 

    We remember that during his elementary and middle school years, he would learn vocabulary while jumping around the house and making up all kinds of sports games to occupy his body while his mind worked on studies.  He has great hand/eye coordination, and he was a good soccer player in his youthful days.  Indeed, when he was playing on a club soccer team in middle school, his coach came to us to tell us that David had great potential as a soccer player.  He lacked one thing, however – he did not have the competitive, killer instinct.  The coach indicated that he could teach this instinct to David, but he wanted to ask us about it first.  We appreciated the coach coming to us first, and we told him so, but we also indicated that we preferred David’s instincts the way that they were.  We had worked hard to help David develop a compassionate and loving heart, and that would serve him well all his life.  David ended up switching to tennis as a sport – no hitting anybody, no knocking anybody down.

    David still has his compassionate and kind heart, and we give thanks for all his work to develop that and to maintain it in the kind of hard and mean world in which we all live.  He has expanded that kind heart to the world of creatures, and when he would catch fish in a Mississippi pond as a kid, he would throw them back into the pond. And he even likes snakes!  He has dedicated his career to making certain that all students, regardless of income or racial classification, have access to quality public education.  

    So, this week we are giving thanks for our son, David Armour Stroupe, who has brought us so much joy and has taught us so much.   Thank you, David!!!!  Thanks for being who you are!