Rhonda Pickering

While Aunt Rhond and her husband Farrel Pickering are now living and working in Hawaii- last I knew. (Should I be jealous? I hear few actually get to go out and explore the other islands all that much), I still think back to when she was our semenary and algebra teacher when they lived down in Cedar City. Aunt Rhoda was the most important reason and joy for me ever wanting to go down there to that desert place (except to look for pretty rocks and explore the place for native american dwellings and such). What I liked about Aunt Rhonda the most was her increadible zeal to make things fun and exciting. It was never a dull moment and there was always a new and excitign lesson to be learned. She was a first taste of what I have ever even since to be what good home schooling could be. Her words were always kind and gentle, yet were put in a way tha we never disregard. She had a gift of heaven around her, and you could feel it. Her greanhouse garden there in Cedar City would be enourmously full of sweek cherry tomatoes that grew all the way up to the ceilings and dropped over again. The tomatoes hung like grapes and she would make sure we picked as much as we could possibly eat. Aunt Rhoda always seem to be able to talk down to our level as if we were not really so little but able to take on everthing we could handle in our minds. She constantly presented to us options, and if it ever felt like we were stuck, she was quick to catch on and return us to hwere we last left off. She was that way in math, and that way in family circles. She has ever since earned my respect and my love, and I feel as if I would have reach some of the best that life can hold if I had but a part of her character.